Rage of the Incredible She-Hulk
by CrimsonResistance
Summary: When Dr. Talia Walker gets angry or upset, she transforms unwillingly into the raging beast known as the She-Hulk. When an attempt to analyze her changes and get insight into a potential cure goes wrong, Talia finds herself plunged into a chase to not only keep the power of her alter-ego out of the wrong hands, but also to unlock the secrets of the She-Hulk's existence.
1. One Small Oversight

_Stay calm. Think rationally._

Talia Walker was in trouble. Her brain knew this, but it was imperative her body not believe it. Not just for her sake, but for everybody else's.

The woman's fingers typed furiously away at the computer terminal, scrolling through menus, attempting desperately to find a way to disable the alarm that was blaring throughout the lab she had infiltrated. There were so many active subroutines, and Talia knew she could disable it, if only she could find the correct ones.

Disabling the system would probably not stop the authorities from showing up at this point, Talia acknowledged, but turning off the security system would give her the advantage of removing security cameras from the equation for her escape, plus unlocking her path out of the area.

Talia shot her eyes from the computer monitor to the nearby digital clock on the wall. It had been two minutes and ten seconds since she had mistakenly - and carelessly - activated the laboratory's security system. That left just slightly more than another 2 or 3 minutes before she could expect a response.

Menus continued to cycle quickly as Talia's fingers tapped against the keyboard. Pulling her right hand from the console, she quickly dragged her arm against her forehead, wiping up beads of sweat that had started to form. Extending her middle and forefinger and pacing them on her neck, the woman measured her pulse. _Elevated. Not good. Stay calm. Stay calm._ Talia used her fingers to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose before returning to the keyboard.

She had been so careful in her planning, so careful in her execution. One small oversight and everything Talia had planned was in danger of being for naught.

 _Wait!_ Talia ceased her typing and paused for a second, before frantically tapping her finger on the keyboard's up arrow, cycling back through her previous commands. _There it is._ Hitting return, Talia held her breath. Seconds on the clock ticked away, before the alarm finally fell silent.

"Yes!" she shouted, before quickly slapping a hand over her mouth. Not the time to celebrate. Quickly cycling once more through the now-unlocked system, she confirmed that the closed circuit camera system had been disabled. _Yes!_

She shot her hand out, grabbing a set of purple-tinged vials that sat on the table next to her, and slipped them into a backpack before flinging it onto her shoulder and dashing out of the room. Once in the corridor, Talia took a sharp right and ran as fast as her feet would carry her.

 _Just gotta get outside. One step at a time. Stay calm. Think rationally._

Talia had memorized the layout of the laboratory - the blueprints had been her lunchtime reading for the past few weeks. Every sharp turn, every set of doors, every staircase that she found herself running through now she could visualize in her head as her brain calculated split-second decisions that would bring her one step closer to freedom.

Her feet completing the final steps of the staircase, Talia broke into a stride and pushed through the double doors into the final corridor before she froze. Blue and red lights.

Down at the far end of the hallway were large, heavy doors - the building's entrance - and through their windows she could make out the sight of police cruisers and armed officers. The door shook emitted an angry bang as it shook from vibrations - no doubt a battering ram.

"No, no, no, the police are here too early," Talia frantically spoke to herself. "No!"

A sudden crash echoed through the hallway as the door gave way, with several officers immediately pouring in through the now open entrance. Stumbling backwards, the woman spun herself and immediately began sprinting in the opposite direction, calculating her next best route with her mental map of the facility.

"Hey you, stop!" voices behind her shouted. "This is the police!"

She needed to lose them - every step would need to be executed perfectly or she would risk arrest - or worse. _Stay calm. Think rationally._

Left, left, right, left. Talia darted her way through the halls, her mind choosing paths af it were engaged in a live maze. Footsteps were persistent, if not growing slightly more distant, behind her. If she were lucky, they'd miss one of her turns and make the wrong guess.

 _I can cut through this door to an emergency exit,_ Talia thought. _Hopefully it will-_

As Talia pushed through the door towards her new escape route, there, too were police waiting for her. She fell to her hands and knees in a panic as she struggled to stop, before clawing her way back through the door she had just entered.

Her heart had skipped a beat, and now was beating twice as hard, she felt, to make up for it. Footsteps echoed down all the hallways and she had no idea which directions were safe, if there were any at all.

Desperately, the woman spotted an open lab room across the hall. Without any other options, she quickly dashed into the space and slammed the door shut behind her, flipping the lock and falling to the floor. Talia scrambled away from the doorway, away from the lone window the room had, in hopes that the police hadn't seen her clearly in either of their encounters thus far.

Seconds later, banging came on the door. "Open up! Police!"

Talia swallowed a lump in her throat. She hid behind one of the lab desks, her mind racing through its options. There was no other entrance or exit besides the one she had taken, and the police were now waiting right outside. In trying to escape capture, she had only delayed the inevitable - she was a sitting duck.

Her nerves twitched, her body was shaking. _Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay -_

A loud crash echoed from the door as the entranceway's frame shook violently and Talia screamed in fright. The battering ram had arrived.

And so had a familiar, gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her heart had eclipsed racing and now was roaring inside of her chest. The rush of fear and anxiety had taken its toll on the young woman. Calm was off the table. Adrenaline firing, her whole body shook as a wave of raw emotion flooded over her.

Her new nightmare had arrived again. The change had begun.

Talia didn't want to believe it - she never did. She fumbled into her pants pocket for her cellphone and quickly activated the front-facing camera, aiming it towards her eyes. If her shaking body hadn't been enough to convince her, the sight literally staring back at her was: a pair of pale green eyes, almost glowing in their look. This was the color they took when the transformation was triggered, she had learned in her previous changes.

"No, not the change! Not now!" The feeling of fear turned into a moment of raw anger. "NO!" she shouted as she waved her arm through a line of test tubes, knocking them to the ground where the glass shattered into dozens of pieces across the sterile floor.

A wave of pain shot through Talia's body as the woman doubled over, falling to her knees as her hands shot to her stomach. A harsh chill swept over her, goosebumps rising on her skin as she could feel her heart pounding against her chest, the adrenaline pumping within her veins.

Looking back over her shoulder, Talia saw the doors continue to shudder against the battering ram. It wasn't going to last much longer. However, neither was she.

Quickly, Talia removed her backpack and fished inside for the set of vials, pulling them from the bag and quickly shoving them as far as they could go inside both of her pockets.

She felt another powerful surge of adrenaline flow through her and momentarily she lost control of her muscles, falling forward. After a second, her hands instinctively shot out to brace her from her fall, veins engorged and tinted a glowing green. With a spasm, her arm muscles began to expand slowly in pulses, spreading in a wave up her shoulders, down her back and throughout her torso, stretching the fabric of her blouse taut.

She tried to fight the metamorphosis by focusing on staying herself, no matter how futile she knew it would be. Her brain had always been the strongest muscle in her body, ever since she had been a kid, but she had found in the past few months that in these situations, no matter how much she fought, her brainpower could not stand a chance. In the end, all that she was would always be lost in the mindlessness of unchecked rage.

In these moments, Talia could always handle her body betraying her with the change into the beast. But she could never forgive her brain betraying her and turning her into a monster.

There was a raw, intense power building within her core - an endless, untapped energy aching to be released unto the world. Her struggle to remain Talia Walker, she knew, was coming to an end. Another surge of adrenaline washed throughout her body and - unable to fight it any longer - the energy exploded into her being.

Talia screamed.

The woman arched backward as her torso began to grow, stretching the covering past its very limits. Muscles tore through the fabric of her blouse with ease, shredding the sky blue coverings over her arm, chest and back. The buttons stretched tightly in the front gave out, bursting off like bullets firing from a gun as expanding breasts popped the clasp of the bra beneath.

Talia knew that her body was engulfed in agony, but beyond the initial stages of her transformation all the pain had been dulled by the massive amounts of adrenaline her body was secreting. Her mind, too, was already beginning to struggle against the explosion of raw emotion fighting its way out. There was no room for pain, only what she could describe as shock.

The woman, her body now top-heavy as her upper frame expanded, glared toward the door once more, the frame now bent and cracked, giving way bit by bit. _NO! They'll be...here….soon. Must...not...hurt-_

Her line of thought slowly became lost among a stream of blurry consciousness as she attempted to struggle to her feet. As Talia found her footing, her growing feet struggled to find balance in her now constricting boots. Toes burst forth through her footwear as dark denim jeans grew tight against the growth of her legs muscles. Tears began to form in the seams surrounding her calf muscles, before ripping themselves down her limbs, revealing skin that was beginning to darken into a greenish hue.

The near-transformed woman stumbled over to the wall, shooting her arms out to brace herself. Equipped with an increasing power, her right hand plunged effortlessly through the thick wall of the lab. Talia shook her head in an attempt to focus, attempting to pull out her wedged fist, and using her free hand to wipe away the lengthening green locks flowing down upon her face. She growled in frustration.

Her head was pounding, her vision blurry, her body powerful, her thoughts...her thoughts...

"I must- I must get to - get out of dang-MUST PUT AN END TO DANGER."

Talia Walker was no more. Everything went black.


	2. Lucky

Rage. Power. Destruction.

The creature's mind thought only of these things. She did not distinguish between human or object - all was an obstacle in her way.

The way to freedom. The way to peace.

She had awoken in confusion in a place that was not familiar to her. The space was small and confining, with no clear escape route. Loud noises whistled in the distance. She was . . . afraid.

Her fists had clenched. No. She was not afraid, afraid was small, afraid was weak. She was not small, she was not weak, not puny.

She was angry, she had the power, and she was going to destroy anything that got in her way.

Powerful muscles flexed, veins carrying irradiated blood flexed against rippled green skin and in a flash, the room had been no more, just rubble of something that had tried to stop her.

Feet crashed through tile floors as the creature's feet carried her in swift, large strides down hallways, while her arms cleared out anything that would threaten to slow down her pace: doors, walls, or puny humans. Obstacles.

Finally, her fiery eyes locked onto a glimpse of open air, a glimpse of freedom. She approached head on, knowing there was only one thing she had to do to be free. The creature gritted her teeth, channeled her rage, and prepared to. . .

* * *

Talia Walker's world smashed back into consciousness. Only blurs were currently visible - the harsh rays of the sun blinded her immediate view of the surroundings. Overloaded senses couldn't tell left from right, up from down. The doctor could feel her heart racing as confusion and panic set in.

 _Calm. Down._

Taking a deep breath, Talia closed her eyes and centered herself, slowing her heart rate and willed her body back into control instead of in the leash of her emotions. Fear, anger, confusion - they were all silenced and tucked deep within her core. Her brain was back, it was time to flex it again.

Calm. Safety. Humanity.

The woman's mind thought only of these things now. It was imperative to make sure these would be a reality for the foreseeable future.

She brought her hands to her face and felt the contours. Soft skin, small rounded nose, pronounced cheekbones and a sharper chin that she wasn't so fond of. All features she recognized - she was herself again, the monster had gone to sleep.

She opened her eyes and the blurs were now in focus, at least as much as they could be with the loss of her glasses. Countless rows of trees surrounded her, trunks stretching skyward with branches full of green leaves forming a lush canopy, with the sun brightly shining through small gaps of the foliage. She herself was fraily leaning against the thick trunk of a rough-barked tree. The doctor wiggled her bare feet, her toes digging into damp soil beneath her.

Talia sighed - partially in relief and in annoyance. She was in the woods.

Goose bumps prickled up her skin as the chill of the surrounding air touched her bare skin. Her body ached and her head, though hers again, throbbed in pain.

Talia brought her hands down, crossing them to touch bare shoulders, running them down across her naked torso, before they snagged ragged remains of denim barely clinging on to her hips - the only piece of clothing that had survived her metamorphosis.

As she fumbled with the remains of her former jeans, a short burst of panic ignited in Talia's brain, her hands immediately shooting for her pockets. As her fingers fished inside, they contacted smooth glass tubes. An instant wave of relief washed over her as she slipped them out - they had survived, her mission had not been for naught.

Relief was short-lived, quickly segueing into a burst of frustration."Luck," Talia scoffed at herself. She glanced down at the vials in her hands, which had not taken any serious damage riding shotgun with her alter-ego. "You got careless."

She had studied the lab's security system thoroughly, but had gotten impatient inside the lab and triggered the alarm while removing the vials from their containment unite. All after being so careful getting up to that point. Her impatience led to police, police led to panic, panic led to . . . _the change._

Talia crouched down to the ground and leaned her back into the nearby tree, pulling her knees up to her face and wrapping her arms around her legs, dangling the three purple vials between her thumb and palm. Her eyes let her surroundings fade out of focus while the beams of sunlight filtering through the opaque liquid commanded her attention.

The creature had been emerging for nearly four months now - four incredibly long and taxing months, four months that Talia Walker would do anything to have back. For all the education she had, all the intelligence she possessed, all she had learned about her transformations and their consequences, she hadn't yet found a way to undo the big mistake that had brought this creature, this _monster_ into the world.

 _Purple is my favorite color._ Talia slightly shifted her hand back and forth, causing the vials to clink together and the purple liquid inside to spawn tiny ripples. _Maybe this is a good sign._

"No, don't do that to yourself. Don't get your hopes up."

A cold chill washed over her body. Talia remembered the experiment all those months ago. She remembered when she had first felt something was wrong. When her body first began to change into something not hers. . . .

"No!" Talia balled up her free hand and smashed it into the dirt, the damp soil spreading underneath her fist. Anger washed through her body.

 _No_. _Don't it get you again._ Anger was one of the triggers. She always made this mistake. The first key priority was always to keep her emotions in check. Letting any of them get a hold of her was dangerous - these are what brought forth her changes in the first place. Several times, after waking up half-naked in strange places, panic, fear and anger would often cause her to immediately re-transform into the creature.

The doctor rested her head into her knees. _I need to get out of here, get back to my home, find some new clothes and be me again._

She sighed. _OK, second stroke of luck, please._ She returned the three vials to her right pocket, then used her left hand to fish into her left pocket. Her cell phone was there, too.

"Two for two." Talia smirked, unlocking the device and scrolling down to the most frequently used number in her recent contacts, then hitting dial. "Luck is saving my ass."

* * *

The black station wagon pulled up on the grass and spun its wheels against the muddy turf, pushing the well-used vehicle as close as possible to the barrier of trees. The driver shifted the car into park, twisted out of the front seat and pulled on the handle of the rear right door, pushing the door open.

Exactly 11 seconds later, a half-naked brown-haired woman, one arm draped across her chest and the other holding a ragged piece of ripped jeans from falling off of her hips, darted out from the shadows of the woods and dove into the car, shutting the door behind her. With the power of a four-cylinder engine, the station wagon peeled back onto pavement and onto the side road.

Talia Walker breathed a sigh of relief and melted into the cloth seats of the car. _Lucky again._ She opened her eyes and stared forward into the car's rear view mirror, where she met a pair of brown eyes staring back at her.

"Rough night, huh?" said the woman driving the car, her voice tinged with sympathy, yet also infused with a touch of humor.

Talia nodded. "Most of them are, nowadays, Rachel."

Rachel shook her head, the long, sand-colored hair that wasn't pinned to the driver seat by her back bouncing around. Her voice lost the humorous tone, replaced with a more weighted seriousness. "Hey, Tal, it's going to be all right."

The doctor forced a smile to her face and adopted a slightly more positive tone. "Well, this is a good start, I guess."

There was an extended length of silence as the pair drove, avoiding eye contact. Talia slumped down in her seat, only letting her eyes breach the bottom of the window. Her body yearned for sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake, at least until she could get back to her house.

"Hey, Tal?"

Talia moved only her eyes, meeting her friend's gaze once more in the mirror.

"I know you're going through a rough time and all, but for goodness sake, please put on a shirt at least."

The doctor blushed, moving her head around before finally noticing a pile of folded clothes sitting next to her - spares she had given to Rachel in the past in case of moments like these.

"Sorry, Rachel, I'm without my glasses so I'm not in the best vision at the moment."

"I don't care, friendo," Rachel said, the humor-lightened voice returned. "I'd prefer we keep our dress code business casual."

Talia found herself smiling a bit, for real this time. Rachel often leaned hard on humor in their interactions to lighten the mood, which was usually an initially-rejected but quickly-welcomed form of recovering from an incident.

"Thank you," said Talia, clasping the back of a fresh bra together on her stomach, before twisting it around and pulling it up over her chest, letting the straps fall over her shoulders. "Seriously, thank you, Rachel, you've saved my life in so many ways. I owe you." She pushed each of her arms through a cotton sweater, then pulled her head through before pulling it down over her torso. She went to unhook her pants, or what was left of them, and once again felt the vials in her pockets.

"No, Tal," said Rachel, once again losing her light-hearted inflection. "I'm the one who owes you a million. Your changes -"

"Let's not focus on that," said Talia, once more retrieving the three purple vials from her pants. "However, there's something I'd like us to focus on later today." She shook the vials once more. "A real change, perhaps."


	3. The Calm Between the Storms

Rachel DeLanco's apartment was a small but cozy one-bedroom abode, housed in one of the middle floors of a large building that sat at the edge of the suburbs outside the city of Pallas, New Hampshire. Talia had learned the drive well from all directions - Rachel had been her saving grace over the last four months.

Dressed in the fresh clothes her friend had provided, Talia followed her friend out of the parking lot and carefully walked to the elevator, where Rachel held the door open for her. As she walked in, the doctor felt her knees give out, causing her to stumble against the wall of the lift, but she was quickly scooped up by Rachel.

"You OK, Tal?" Rachel squeaked, spinning her friend around to meet her face to face.

"It's all right," said Talia, motioning Rachel away. She walked over and hit the button for the seventh floor. "I'm still just weak from the change."

The elevator began to rise, jerking slightly as it started but smoothing out for the rest of their journey upward. As the doors cracked open, Rachel squeezed out, keys in hand, and jogged the way to her door, quickly unlocking the entrance and bolting inside.

Talia followed cautiously, rounding the corner into the apartment, only to see Rachel furiously gathering up strewn clothes and objects that were scattered around the place. Talia smiled.

"Don't clean up on my behalf, Rachel," she laughed. "Seriously."

Rachel frowned. "I only do it because I know you'd be doing it for me when you're supposed to be taking it easy." She jogged over to the couch and plucked a pillow from the floor, throwing it onto the cushions before grabbing Talia by the shoulder and pushing her down onto the seat.

"Sit. Relax." Rachel made a drinking motion. "Coffee?"

"Please."

Rachel almost leapt away from the couch, steering her path with the maneuverability of a fighter jet away from the living room and toward the kitchen, simultaneously reaching into her shoulder bag and withdrawing the fragments of Talia's wardrobe from the night before, tossing them toward the washing machine in the closet and missing by several feet, the scraps tumbling to the floor. Without missing a beat, though, Rachel coasted into the kitchen and fetched a coffee filter and grounds, heaping a few scoops into her coffee maker and flipping the switch.

Talia rolled her eyes and shook her head. Sinking down into the couch, she picked up a stray sock that was wedged under the armrest, folded it, and placed it on the ground.

"I see you cleaning!" came Rachel's voice from the kitchen.

Talia sighed, tilting her head back into the couch cushion. She closed her eyes briefly and tried to relax, but a gnawing curiosity rattled within her brain. She knew Rachel didn't like her doing it, but she had to know.

The TV flickered on and Talia flipped through a few channels until the local news filled the screen. The words "SPECIAL REPORT" were emblazoned across the bottom of the broadcast, and Talia's gut sunk.

The laboratory building Talia had trespassed into last night - a large, private complex located a few towns over - formed the backdrop of a scene riddled with police, with the news correspondent standing in the foreground breaking down the story. The view was obstructed, but it was clear to the doctor's discerning eye that one of the lab doorways, in addition to much of the wall around it, was missing, leaving a giant hole where it once was. On the ground, shards of glass reflected sunlight, skewered across chunks of brick and concrete.

 _I was trapped, no exit. The beast made one._

 _"Police are not revealing the full details of the incident here at Buscema Lab,"_ spoke the correspondent - a neatly-groomed man in his 30s - while walking around the scene. _"Attempts to get comments from the lab or the police on the cause of the incident have gone unanswered so far. However, residents in surrounding neighborhoods spoke to us earlier."_

The news rolled to tape, and the image of an older woman popped on screen, with a microphone being held to her face. _"They're saying it's under control, but there were swarms of police all around here last night, I couldn't get any sleep! Nobody fires that many guns for something 'under control.'"_

The next image was that of a middle-aged man with a goatee. _"Guns were blazing, and all I know is that whatever came out of that building wasn't normal."_

 _"It was that green hulking woman,"_ spoke a young couple. _"We're sure of it. We thought the stories were false, but we totally saw her!"_

The news kept cutting to different people. _"It's some kind of practical joke, a pretty lewd one at that."_

 _"It was the She-Hulk. Totally the She-Hulk."_

 _"Whatever it was, I don't think anything human could've done that to the lab."_

The correspondent appeared back on screen, with a blurry, distant over-the-shoulder photo of a large, muscular green woman, cropped from her broad, powerful shoulders up to her wild, unkempt hair. _"This marks the 14th reported sighting of the alleged 'She-Hulk' creature in the past few months in the state, including this still captured last month by a bystander in the Valley town park. We again asked the police and the lab if they could confirm or deny the presence of the, and we were given no comment. Back to you, Jim -"_

The TV switched off, and Rachel put herself between Talia and the screen.

"Don't do that to yourself, Tal! You have enough on your plate." She kneeled down and placed her arms on her friend's shoulders. "The She-Hulk has never hurt anybody."

Talia looked away from Rachel and scowled. "Not yet."

"C'mon, forget about it for just a second," said Rachel, rising to her feet and making her way back to the kitchen. "Take a break, please, for your own sake. You know it's a vicious circle worrying about everything; it'll just cause you to get upset."

Talia scowled. "And we know what happens when I do that."

Rachel either ignored her comment or didn't hear it. Her friend had opened up her cabinet and fumbled around across different shelves, removing a single mug, while unsuccessfully searching for a second. She slid over to her sink, fetching a used one out of her sink, quickly rinsing it with tap water, then moved it to the coffee maker.

"Still like your coffee black?" she shouted.

"Yes."

"Disgusting." Rachel withdrew the pot and began to pour.

"So," said the doctor, "I see they've stuck a name on it."

"On what?"

Talia was silent. Rachel's eyes widened.

"Oh." She walked out of the kitchen, answering hesitantly. "Yeah, I've seen the name pop up here and there."

"Here and there? How widespread is this?"

"They really latched onto the descriptions of you as 'hulking,' which just evolved." Rachel took a deep breath. "It's better than calling you 'the green woman' or 'the thing,' at least."

Talia waved her arms at the TV. " _She-_ Hulk, though? Why does it have to have a gender tag? Why don't they just call the thing 'the Hulk?'"

"Not everybody is as smart as you, Tal," Rachel shouted from the kitchen. "You're talking about common sense when it comes to the award-winning combo of men and the media.

"Second," she continued, "I kind of like it."

"I don't. I'm still lucky that the worst they've done is start naming it so far."

"Paging Dr. Walker," Rachel said, "You're here and you're human, and your name is Talia, not She-Hulk. You're also in my place and you need to start relaxing."

"What I need to do," Talia responded darkly, "is get rid of this thing dwelling inside of me." Talia fished the purple vials into her hands, holding the purple liquid up to the light. "These nanobots are the key."

"Nano-what now?" asked a confused Rachel. Two coffee cups in hand, she wandered over to the small couch positioned against the wall in her apartment's living room. Positioning herself to sit down, she offered out a cup full of brew to the already-sitting Talia Walker, who accepted the gift eagerly.

"Nanobots," said Talia, sipping in the hot beverage. "Microscopic robots."

Rachel brought her own cup to her mouth, staring at her friend over the ceramic glass. "And you want to put these things into your bloodstream?"

Talia nodded.

"I don't get it, Tal," said Rachel, motioning to the three purple vials that were now resting on her coffee table. "What can these things do that your other treatments have been unable to accomplish? You put yourself in a lot of danger just for those small tubes."

The doctor gulped down another mouthful of the hot beverage, before putting the glass down onto a coaster. "I've been trying to treat my... _condition_ as any other ailment. I was trying to treat different effects, pinpoint the exact cause, but in the end, I've been trying to treat my problem as something normal."

Talia stood up and motioned at herself. "That was my problem, Rachel, nothing about my condition is normal. Nothing about my condition is logical. The overexposure of gamma radiation that caused this whole thing - it's not supposed to create a creature, it's supposed to annihilate my cells and kill me.

"The transformation doesn't even obey the laws of physics! When I change…" The doctor motioned over to the pile of shredded clothes from the night before that was sitting on the floor next to Rachel's washing machine. "When I change, I gain mass. Rapidly. Mass isn't supposed to just come out of thin air. Mass is matter, matter changes forms, it isn't possible to be created or destroyed. When people gain muscle mass, they're taking in calories, protein, etc. gradually over a period of time and turning that into muscle. I'm not converting anything, I'm just receiving, and then losing it when I change back. Where's that coming from?

"If my transformation doesn't obey the normal laws of this world, I have to stop treating it as such." Talia scooped up one of the vials and held it up to her eye. "These nanobots should be able to give me a better idea of what the real root of this whole thing is."

Rachel sat up enthusiastically. "Do you really think it'll help you find a cure?"

Talia gave a slight sigh before shaking her head. She lowered the test tube into the ground. "I don't know. Nothing's a given. But I sure intend to find out tonight." Talia looked up. "With your help, if you can spare it."

Rachel choked on a sip of her drink, and gazed quizzically at her friend. "Me? Tonight? How?"

"My lab." Talia paused, her face blank like a stone, all emotions trapped away. "I need you to trigger my transformation and bring out the beast."


	4. Bringing Forth the Beast

Talia's eyes met Rachel's, and Rachel knew there was no changing her friend's mind.

Rachel waited nervously as Talia unlocked the door to her lab via keycard, and the pair filed in, allowing the large, steel door to shut behind them with a clank. With a flip of a few switches, the lab began to come to life.

Rachel had been in Talia's lab dozens of time. It was a modest space crammed into the basement of the local university. Talia, however, always had managed to take mediocre and turn it into magnificence. While the school itself lended decent funding, Talia had been a master at getting every piece of fancy equipment she needed by the way of attracting donors and grants to the magnetism of her research.

 _Gamma radiation is the future,_ Rachel remembered one of her friend's pitches reading. _It'll unleash new potential._

Talia's alter-ego flashed through her mind, and Rachel hugged herself uncomfortably.

The doctor had wasted no time and had moved toward the far wall. Talia carefully bent down and untied each of her shoes and peeled off both her socks, placing them in a storage locker in the back of the lab. Returning to her feet, Talia caught her reflection briefly in the mirror hanging on the locker door.

 _Is she having doubts?_ Rachel thought.

The pause was only momentary. Talia crossed her arms and grasped both sides at the bottom of her sweater, then pulled it over her head, proceeding to fold it and place it inside the locker. The hum of the surrounding equipment began to come alive as the machines powered up around her.

Rachel felt a pit in the bottom of her stomach begin to come to life as well.

Talia unbuttoned her jeans and began to wiggle the denim back and forth until they slid down over her hips. The doctor hooked a finger through her panties and let them fall with her pants, bringing both down over her legs, before folding it neatly and resting it next to her sweater. "Thanks again for bringing me these clothes, Rachel."

"You've got it."

 _How is she so calm?_ Rachel thought, knowing that she would be a nervous mess if it were she in her friend's shoes. _Not even a shake in her hand._ The irony that all that calm would soon have to be discarded in order to draw out the monster wasn't lost on Rachel, and she figured it wasn't lost on her friend, either.

Talia brought a hand up to her back and unhooked her bra, causing Rachel to turn her gaze away. _She's taking this as just another day on the job, another experiment, never mind that she's the subject. Every step is analytical and professional. That's how she's always been._

Rachel heard the clink of test tubes and turned her head to see Talia standing naked at the lab table, taking a syringe and drawing in a full dosage of the purple liquid - the nanobots which would be entering her bloodstream and hopefully unlocking the secret, or at least part of the mystery of her transformation. Talia let a small stream of liquid drip out to rid the shot of any air bubbles, and brought the needle to her arm. For a split second it seemed like she hesitated, but then quickly the needle was in and any trace of the liquid had vanished into her bloodstream.

 _She knows what she's doing,_ Rachel reassured herself, before thinking to the images of the lab damage from the other night. _But she is prone to making mistakes, especially in her rush to cure herself._

Footsteps echoed from the small platform that had been set up in the middle of the lab as Talia positioned herself on it. She bent down and picked up a grouping of sensors, each with wires that ran to the many surrounding computers, and began to tape them around her body - on her temple, above her heart between her breasts, her neck, and her legs, among others. It was then Rachel noticed the other objects laying on the ground: a set of shackles.

"Rachel, can you help me put these on?"

Swallowing back a lump in her throat, Rachel moved to the center of the room and met Talia, who handed her one of the shackles and offered up her left wrist to be bound. Rachel averted her gaze from her friend and focused on the device. The shackle was thick and solid, not to mention incredibly heavy - Rachel had to fumble with her grip on the object a few times before she was effectively able to wrap it around Talia's wrist. Holding the bolt in her hand, now it was Rachel who hesitated.

She felt the doctor's hand grip her shoulder. "Rachel, trust me, it's OK. Close it."

With a deep breath, Rachel shut the shackle tight, and immediately the plain metallic color began to glow, brightening to a solid green color.

"Gamma-reinforced shackle device," Talia rattled off like it was an everyday object. "It'll help keep _it_ in place."

It. _Talia always refers to her other half as an "it." Does that help her dissociate herself from what she becomes?_

Rachel was able to figure out the second wrist shackle more easily and shut it around the doctor's other wrist, the green glow coming to life. Next, two more of the same shackles went around Talia's ankles. With all secured, Talia gave some test tugs with her limbs, before giving a nod of approval.

"OK, Rachel," said the doctor, "all the computers are running, the gamma cuffs are solid, and the nanobots should have had enough time to be into my bloodstream." She motioned with her chin to the ceiling. "In addition to measuring my vitals and the machine that will keep track of the nanobot signals, I also have lab cameras recording everything."

Rachel nodded. "Thorough."

Talia looked to the ground. "Have to be." Her friend paused, before looking up and meeting her eyes again. "Now, once this happens, the gamma cuffs will reinforce the creature in place until the machines get all the data needed." She lifted her shackled hand and pointed to a machine anchored to the wall. "See all those red lights on that monitor to your right? Those are status indicators, which will keep a tally on when all the processes are done."

 _She's talking like a scientist again. Completely removed from all emotional ties to what she's doing. The way she's talking to me is night and day from this morning, when she upset about the scene she had caused at Buscema Lab. I don't know how she can switch on and off like this._

 _But then again, I don't have to worry about controlling my emotions like she does._

Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. "And what happens when you're done? Your other half doesn't exactly like to bring you back on schedule."

Talia flexed her right arm, tugging on the gamma cuff. "When all the readings are completed, the gamma cuffs will send a paralyzing current into the creature, which, based on my current data, should act as a tranquilizer on it and nullify any struggle, triggering a reversion. That'll continue until the machine recognizes that my human body chemistry has returned."

"Tal, that sounds dangerous. You've never tested that - any of this - on the She-Hulk before."

Talia frowned. "Stop calling it that."

"You're worried about the name still, Tal!?" Rachel shouted. "How about something more important: Your life is on the line. What if she breaks free? What if the paralyzing agent doesn't stop when you're back to yourself? Have you thought about that?" Rachel stepped closer to her friend. "You're a scientist, you're supposed to run tests on tests, then tests on those tests on those tests." Rachel shook her head. "This is risky."

The doctor allowed a flash of anger on her face before reattaining her scientist's plain gaze. "Yes, Rachel, my life is on the line. My life is on the line every day, when at a moment's notice this, this _thing_ can come bursting out from within, taking over me and going on a path of destruction. I don't have any say in when it comes, what it does, but you know what? I do have a say in doing my best to make sure it can never break free again!

"You know why I know this will work? Because I have my best friend at my side, who has given up everything to help me." Talia looked to the floor, a brief glimpse of emotion once again visible - this time sadness. "Please, Rachel, let me try."

 _Say no, walk out. You owe her your help, but this is ridiculous._

"Rachel," Talia continued. "You're the only one who can help me here. You're the only friend I've got."

 _No, Tal, why did you put it that way? You're going to make me do this, make me watch you inflict this upon yourself._

"OK," Rachel answered.

Talia looked up and nodded. "You're the best."

Rachel paused. "Hey Tal?"

"Yes?"

"This is unacceptable, though," said Rachel, motioning her hand down her friend's bare body. "I thought we talked about your dress code the other day in the car."

Talia smiled. Rachel faked one of her own - it was hard to see her friend looking like a prisoner and feel any sort of joy, but this was what she wanted. _This whole thing is my fault, after all,_ she reminded herself. _I owe her._

"All right," said Talia, immediately becoming the calm, analytic scientist again. "Let's start. Rachel, I need you to go over to that small dial to your right."

Rachel quickly glanced over her shoulder and saw what she believed was the device. She placed a supportive hand on Talia's shoulder before walking over to the lab and picking it up. "This one?"

Talia nodded. "Yes. Now, on my mark, turn the dial, which will provide some resistance, to the right and hold it there for five seconds. This will deliver a shock to my system -"

"Tal!" Rachel protested.

"-a _shock to my system,_ " Talia repeated, ignoring Rachel's exclamation, "which should trigger my metamorphosis. If the first one fails, I'll signal you to go again. We'll repeat until it happens."

Rachel looked upon her friend, then down at the device, which was shaking in her own nervous hands. "OK, Tal, it's your show. Just give the word."

Talia glanced over to the computers, to the red lights on the monitor, and to her friend. She stared down at each of the shackles, giving one more test pull on each, before allowing their eyes to meet once more.

"Go."

Rachel gulped back her reservations and turned the dial to the right. An electric buzz joined the chorus of machine noises within the lab as Talia began to shake, holding her head down and gritting her teeth.

 _One Mississippi, two Mississippi. . ._

On five seconds, Rachel released her grip of the dial, allowing the spring resistance of the knob to dial itself back down to zero. Talia's shaking immediately ceased as the current was stopped.

The doctor exhaled sharply through her teeth. "Again."

Rachel reluctantly turned the knob once more, and once more her friend began to convulse, clenching her fists and bobbing her head. _Four Mississippi...five Mississippi…"_

The shock stopped, and Talia's knees briefly buckled before regaining her composure. Rachel put the device down and began to move toward her friend.

"Again."

"But Talia…"

"Again! This time hold it for ten seconds."

Rachel stayed put, halfway between her friend and the device.

Talia brought her gaze up. "Rachel, please."

Closing her eyes in disbelief of what she was doing, Rachel again stepped back to the table and retrieved the dial. Talia's eyes were still on her, and she didn't need to say the words again for Rachel to know what she had to do.

The knob twisted to the right in Rachel's grip and Talia began to thrash once more. Three seconds, five seconds, she knew Talia was in pain. _Eight seconds, nine seconds…_

"Don't stop!" Talia yelled, convulsing against the rattling cuffs. "Keep it going!"

Rachel kept her grip on the dial, her heart beating a mile a minute. She kept counting. _Fifteen….sixteen…_ Then there was a scream.

"Oh god!" Talia shouted, her arms quaking. "Oh GOD Rachel, it's coming!" The doctor looked up at Rachel, and the familiar eyes of Talia Walker had been replaced with a glowing green. "The change, it's COMING!"

Rachel immediately released the dial and dropped the device onto the lab table and slowly moved towards her friend. She could feel her heart pounding even harder against her chest, and her adrenaline flowing through every pore. If she had had her own inner creature, it surely would've been released by now itself.

Talia slammed her eyes shut and shook her in shackles, her arms writhing against the tight wires that secured her to the platform. The first thing that Rachel noticed was a streak of dark green color beginning to flow throughout Talia's veins - down her legs, through the muscles on her arms, across her chest, on her face.

The first noticeable change began in her biceps, which immediately began to balloon in size, followed by a spasm of growth in her triceps and up her arm. Talia had never had well-defined muscles in the timespan that Rachel had known her, but within seconds her arms were doubled in size, packed tightly with power. Talia pulled against the shackles, but the green glowing metal pulled taut and would not allow any slack.

The doctor's legs buckled once more as her thighs began to expand, muscles rippling up against her skin as her legs stretched wider. Her toes began to curl as her feet expanded both in width and length, pressing down into the platform with incredible pressure. Rachel could hear the groaning of metal as her increasingly-dense limbs dented the thick structure with their new mass.

Rachel's attention suddenly shifted as the doctor yelled, pulling her engorged limbs to the side as she arched her back in pain. Talia's facial structure had begun to widen, her jaw and cheekbones extended as her petite neck widened into a thick mass beneath her. Emerald green veins continued to line her face, continuing the irradiated blood through her system.

Her eyes followed her friend's growing form down her neck to her torso. Talia, normally a smaller woman, was wildly out of proportion - gigantic arms and legs, with a growing head and tiny torso. However, the change was not far behind, as the doctor's shoulders immediately burst outward with bone-popping crunches. The rest of Talia's upper body followed suit, her ribs pushing outward as muscle filled in the gaps, growing her form. Smooth, round bumps of abdominal muscles pushed forth against Talia's rapidly inhaling and exhaling core. Above, protruding pectoral muscles forced themselves against darkening green skin, pushing Talia's breasts forward, which had themselves engorged exponentially to adorn her growing frame.

The skin on the doctor slowly shifted darker, the emerald green color in her veins fading into the jade coloring that the creature was known for. Talia's ear-length hair began to thicken as it grew down toward her shoulders, the normally straight brown strands furiously becoming a bushy green mane.

"Rachel!" groaned Talia in an almost unrecognizable voice - a deep tone several octaves lower than the doctor. Rachel snapped out of her trance observing the transformation and met the green eyes of her friend. Talia was almost completely the creature now, only a small glimmer of consciousness hidden within the monster's eyes remained of her friend.

"Rach...el," the human monster groaned again deeply, "I'm...sorry, I'mmm…"

The groan turned into a frightening roar as the glowing green eyes locked once more onto Rachel, that glimmer no longer visible, instead replaced by unchecked anger _._ The beast was in control.

Talia's creature was a mountain of power. Broad shoulders, tight muscles visible underneath jade skin, which covered a thick, wide torso held up by legs that reminded Rachel of tree trunks. That power was immediately tapped as the creature began to thrash, but the gamma cuffs did their job and held tightly, considerably denying a range of movement to her. Rachel felt a fleeting moment of relief.

Another roar filled the room as Rachel was forced to cover her ears, and that relief turned to panic. The creature looked down at her left arm, before pivoting her head to the right arm, tugging against each one in disgust, the gamma cuffs glowing a brighter green each time it was pulled on. Her brow furrowed and teeth clenched before staring once again at Rachel with a fiery gaze. The creature knew she was trapped, and Rachel was the scapegoat.

Before she could even react, the creature lunged toward Rachel in a blaze of speed, but once more was denied by the gamma cuffs, which held her limbs back. The jade giant pushed its torso forward, straining its muscles against its imprisonment to no avail, but for all the comfort Rachel tried to find in it, she realized the creature was only getting angrier.

A loud beep echoed into Rachel's right ear, and the woman turned to see the monitor. _That's right!_ Attempting to ignore the target on her back from her transformed friend, Rachel ran over to the monitor Talia had pointed out before and looked at the processes on the screen. There were five dots: two green and three red.

"That's good," Rachel said to herself, "getting there."

Rachel turned back to the center of the lab to see the creature begin to stomp against the platform with her limited mobility, damaging the metallic base repeatedly with her foot. She had seemed to notice it was the one thing she could leave noticeable damage on, so it continued to pound away at it.

A green light flashed from the monitor, drawing Rachel's attention. _Three green lights, two red._ She looked back to the creature, which was continuing to stomp. _Come on, let's hurry this up._

Rachel looked back at the struggling creature. Underneath the pile of rage and power, somewhere, was her friend, Talia. She didn't want to look at her friend in this condition, but the beast had magnetized her gaze..

 _I'm so sorry, Tal. I'm sorry this happened to you._

Another beep. Four green lights and one red. Rachel turned excitedly to the monitor and eyeballed the last red light. In addition to the status, layers of data were pouring over the screens: percentages, radiation levels, and other numbers that she had no idea what they meant, though Talia would no doubt spend hours analyzing.

Glancing over her shoulder, Rachel found that the beast, however, had stopped her pounding and had started to do her own analysis: on her. The woman felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as the creature's icy green stare focused on her.

The final beep: five green lights. Rachel turned back toward the monitor and breathed a sigh of relief. Beneath the status lights, the words COMMENCING NEURAL TRANQUILIZER appeared on screen.

The lights on the gamma cuffs, which until recently had been glowing a bright green, now switched to a bright blue as electric current began to erupt from the devices into the limbs of the creature. The briefly-stoic alter-ego of her friend immediately responded by closing her eyes and unleashing a bestial roar as the attempts to subdue her began.

After a few moments, though, the roaring stopped, and the creature ceased its struggle.

There was no sign of Talia, however. Instead, the icy green eyes of the creature known as the She-Hulk flashed a look of deep anger, of _rage_. Rachel's heart dropped. _Oh no._

As the current continued to spark, the She-Hulk quickly began stretching her left arm as far as she possibly could against the gamma cuff, drawing more of the energy to that one to counteract the pressure it was drawing. While she continued to stress the left arm cuff, she then began to flex against the left leg cuff, drawing increased current toward that one in addition. Soon after, her right leg joined the struggle, and three out of her four limbs were sparking with loads of current from the machines.

With a guttural roar, the She-Hulk finally gave her last limb, her right arm, its chance to shine, whipping it outward with lightning speed. In one swift motion, the right arm yanked the gamma cuff taut, before it snapped into shards that flew across the lab before skidding across the floor.

The She-Hulk was breaking free.

Rachel felt her body freeze beneath her. What could she do? Talia had said the machine would take care of it, but the current wasn't working - in fact, it was fueling enough rage to allow the creature to escape.

With one limb free, the She-Hulk continued to flex both of its legs as her right arm shot to pull on the left arm's shackle, which was freed within moments. _She must be overloading specific limbs,_ Rachel thought, _which weakens the energy to the remaining ones._

Rachel wanted to pat herself on the back in pride of that scientific deduction, however her immediate concern was focusing on not being torn apart by the creature breaking out of its barriers.

 _I need to distract her before it's too late; I need to reach Talia inside._

Swallowing the lump at the back of her throat, Rachel forced her legs to move slowly toward the center of the lab, instead of running for the door as every instinct in her mind was telling her to. With every step, she could hear the crackle of current getting louder, and the grunting and struggling of the She-Hulk getting more intense.

As Rachel approached, the beast had both of her chiseled arms pulling with all her might at the gamma cuff on the left leg. Fighting against the current, the pain and the shock only seemed to empower her by increasing her rage. The third limb was free in no time. One left, which the She-Hulk immediately began to focus on.

In seconds, the shackle was broken, and the monster, the beast, the unleashed rage of Talia Walker was free from the device that was supposed to keep her in check.

Once more, the icy, angry eyes of the She-Hulk turned to her. Rachel was out of time.

The beast, still as lightning fast as she was strong, turned to the crumpled mess of what was once the experimental platform, and lifted the object above her head. Muscles heaving, teeth clenched, the She-Hulk took aim and tossed the mass toward the monitor with the green lights, causing it to explode in a spectacle of sparks.

"Talia, stop this, stop this now!" Rachel shouted unconsciously.

The beast froze, and turned once more to the woman.

"Talia, please," pleaded Rachel.

A low growl began to vibrate in the She-Hulk's throat, as the creature pivoted and thrust herself across the room in a second, grasping Rachel by the left wrist and yanking her up in the air. Rachel yelled as pain shot down her arm, though she was powerless to do anything as she dangled from the beast's grasp, the She-Hulk moving their faces close together.

"I AM NOT PUNY TALIA!" roared the creature.

Rachel's heart skipped a beat. She had talked. _She's never talked before. Only roared, growled, yelled - never talked._

"You are puny Talia's friend," growled the beast, shaking Rachel in by the arm, making the woman yelp again in pain. "You made me hurt."

 _Talia, you always thought the creature was just a being of pure rage and emotion. She has a mind of her own, she feels, she thinks._

Rachel, trying to suppress the quaking fear in her core, took a deep breath as a light switched on in her brain. _She's scared, just as much as me._

"I want to be your friend too," Rachel squeaked, forcing uncomfortable contact with the She-Hulk's eyes. She could feel the creature's heavy breath on her. "I'm sorry for making you hurt, but you're hurting me too."

The She-Hulk's brow furrowed, and for the first time since it had emerged, the creature's expression was not one of rage, but instead, confusion. The beast slowly lowered Rachel down, and soon the woman felt the solid floor beneath her. As her footing returned, the She-Hulk's grip loosened, and Rachel's arm flopped to her side, still shooting with pain. Grasping her shoulder, which was clearly out of its socket, Rachel forced herself to keep talking.

"I'm sorry I called you Talia, that was uncalled for."

"I am NOT that puny Talia."

"Yes," Rachel agreed. "I know. What should I call you then?"

The beast paused, backing up a few spaces. For all the adrenaline that was still firing on all cylinders, for all the massive muscles and power the green behemoth had at her disposal, it was now her brain that had to think, and it was powerless.

"I...I don't know," the monster growled.

Rachel searched her mind and only one thing popped into her head _. Talia is going to hate me._ "What about 'She-Hulk?'"

"Sheeee...Huuuulk?" the creature repeated confusedly. "What is _SheeeeHulk?_

"It's a name," Rachel continued. "My name is Rachel. My father insisted on it, something about loving the 'ch-' sound in the middle. My mom wanted to call me Lucy, but gladly she lost that battle."

"Raytch..EL. Loo-see," the She-Hulk grunted. "Sh-she HULK." The brow furrowed once again, and the creature's arms shot to her head. "I don't know. I DON'T KNOW!"

"That's OK!" Rachel shouted, moving up to the beast and placing her right hand on the green skin of the creature's abdomen, causing her to recoil away. Rachel moved forward once again, and slowly resumed her contact. "That's OK."

This time, the beast didn't recoil, but instead just stared at her hand. The beast's skin was tough as a rock, yet still oddly soft to the touch. The muscles underneath the skin felt as if they were straining, but after a few seconds her core began to relax, and the beast dropped her arms to the side.

"Listen," Rachel said, looking up to the beast's face. "Names are not important now. What's important is that I want to help you. I can release you from your pain, I know you're hurting. Just sit with me here, and we'll make each other feel better, OK?"

Rachel lowered herself to the ground and sat on her folded legs on the ground, patting with her uninjured hand motioning the creature to join her.

"Rach...el,," the creature spoke softly, mimicking the movement and letting her hulking frame sink to the ground. "She...Hulk, friend."

"Yes, friend," Rachel said. "She-Hulk, or whatever you decide on, friends make mistakes, and I'm sorry for hurting you."

"Puny Talia wants to hurt me," said the creature, tensing up.

Rachel once again made contact, this time with the She-Hulk's arm. "Ignore Talia, she's not here. Focus on me. I don't want to hurt you."

"No hurt…"

"Close your eyes, just breathe with me, we'll make our pain go away," Rachel continued, tracing her hand down the She-Hulk's arm and finding her hand. She wrapped her palm around two of the enormous fingers of the creature's hand, and squeezed. "Just breathe."

Rachel exhaled alongside the She-Hulk, and what could've been either seconds or hours later, Rachel's adrenaline wouldn't tell her, another change began.

The massive fingers that dwarfed Rachel's palm began to shrink in her grip. The tough, green skin of the She-Hulk gave way to fragile, pale olive-tinged skin. Muscles rippling from within relaxed and began to withdraw. Bones crunched, hair thinned, and humanity returned as Talia Walker collapsed into Rachel's grasp.

The She-Hulk's pain was gone, for now.


	5. What the Monster Leaves Behind

_So, the She-Hulk is human after all. And thankfully, like a human, she's making mistakes._

Detective Martin Colvin, slumped over an oversized lab table, lifted his fingers to his eyes and began to rub them repeatedly. It had been a long day of work in the Buscema Lab, but finally the type of day that he had been hoping for in the She-Hulk case.

Colvin chuckled as he looked over the items that lay in front of him on the lab table.

 _I'm so tired I'm laughing at myself._

Four months he had been assigned to tracking down a bogey man that's only trail was destruction. While this lab had plenty of that to go around, it also had more this time.

Evidence. They finally had more compelling evidence.

While the room that housed the stolen material from the lab was of great concern, especially to the scientists who worked there, it was this lab room that Colvin was standing in that intrigued him more. This room told a story.

"OK," he said to himself, bringing a hand across his shortly-trimmed hair. "Let's go over this one more time."

Colvin stepped over shards of broken glass that had littered the floor and moved his way down the oversized lab table to several items that had been placed in evidence bags. The first was a small backpack, empty, that was found discarded on the floor. The second was a pair of shattered glasses, with a slightly noteworthy nearsighted prescription. Beyond the possible fingerprints on both, which had already been taken, these items didn't interest him as much. The next few were much more intriguing.

The next bag held the sky blue remains of what used to be a women's blouse. The fabric had been torn at the seams, stretched to its limit and left in pieces on the floor. The next was a white, 36B brassiere, its back clasp and shoulder straps had snapped - like the blouse, stretched beyond its limit. In the fifth bag were shoes, or at least what was left of them, as their tops had been split open and soles left discarded on the floor.

Colvin glanced up from the evidence bags and glanced over to the nearby wall, where a giant hole had punctured the wall, a Hulk-sized fist. He smirked.

The She-Hulk didn't break into the lab, the She-Hulk didn't steal sensitive material from the lab - no, a human woman did. It was the She-Hulk that left the lab however, and whatever the process was that separated the two of them, it had happened right here.

The monster's trail had always been easy to pick up due to destruction and frightened bystanders, but it was usually impossible to follow after a certain time, for that trail would always vanish mysteriously. That had never made sense - at least not until these destroyed pieces of clothing confirmed that the She-Hulk was not always the She-Hulk, but she had an alter-ego.

Beyond the fact that a woman transformed into the creature, Colvin and his team didn't know much else about the person. The woman who was the She-Hulk by all means seemed to be an intelligent person. She had disabled the security system - albeit a bit too late to stop police response - but the camera footage had been wiped, leaving them without any visuals to go on. With all the care she had taken to erase her trail, leaving these items behind seemed like a sloppy follow-up, which Colvin had been pondering.

 _Either she became the She-Hulk in desperation, or unintentionally._

"Sir?" Colvin snapped out of his deep thought and turned to the entrance of the lab room, where a uniformed officer was standing with a few loose papers clutched in his hands. "You asked for a compiled list of witness statements?"

Colvin nodded, then carefully tiptoed his way around the glass-covered floor to meet his colleague. "Thanks, Jones." The detective took quick glances at each of the sheets, catching glimpses of what looked to be completely useless information, his face soon betraying his feelings. "Anything worthwhile in here?"

"Not really," Jones answered. "Though the conspiracy theories are an entertaining read."

Colvin smirked. "Noted. Anything else I should be aware of?"

"Actually, yes," Jones said. "One of the scientists is insisting on talking with you."

"Didn't you take his statement?"

Jones shook his head. "Wouldn't speak to me. Said it was important and it had to be you."

 _Probably wants to report another broken test tube._ "OK, very well," Colvin sighed. "Let's get this over with."

Officer Jones led Colvin out of the room, zigzagging down a few hallways. The detective let his eyes wander around as he walked, re-scanning all the traces of the She-Hulk's presence he could get his eyes on. Soon, they entered into a small computer lab, where a heavy-set bald man in a lab coat was waiting impatiently.

"Detective Colvin, this is Dr. Julian Manfred."

Colvin didn't extend a hand to shake, nor did the doctor offer the same. _Good, formalities are a waste of time._

"OK, doctor," Colvin said, crossing his arms across his chest. "I'm all ears."

Manfred rolled his eyes. "About time." The doctor turned to a nearby computer and reached out for the accompanying mouse, scrolling through some visual data that all looked like gibberish to Colvin. "While you all have been detailing the minor details of this intrusion," he said, pointing to a picture of wavy lines, "I've discovered something a bit disturbing."

Colvin squinted at the screen. "What am I looking at?"

"This waveform here is from a scan we did of the lab where you found your clothing samples," said Manfred. He traced his fingers over the waving lines. "See these small wavelengths? Those are gamma rays."

"Gamma rays?" repeated Colvin, "Like, radiation?"

"Yes, exactly, like I've been trying to tell your colleagues for some time now." Manfred scrolled through a few more sets of pictures with the mouse, using his left index finger to continually motion to each new image. "We initially picked up some trace amounts in the hallways, but here, in this last one, this is the highest concentration, which is situated in the lab where you just were."

A chill rain through Colvin's spine, snapping him out of his ambivalence. "In that lab? Isn't gamma radiation harmful?"

Manfred nodded. "It can be. It packs the most energy and can do the most damage." The doctor looked up and noticed the concern etched on Colvin's face, before grinning. "Don't shit your pants though, detective, the amounts we found aren't going to do any serious harm."

Colvin frowned, trying to ignore the quip but a bit relieved about that revelation. "So, you're saying there's some correlation between gamma rays and the She-Hulk? Have you eliminated any of them coming from your equipment here?"

"We don't work with gamma rays in this lab," Manfred said, spinning around from the computer screen. "We have the equipment to recognize radiation, and sure there are times when we'll see them here, but nothing in this building can cause them at the scale we've seen here."

Colvin looked back to Jones, who was standing quietly in the corner listening, then to Manfred, then back to the computer screen with the gamma ray waves. "So, we've got missing nanotech, shredded clothes, holes in walls, and gamma radiation. You a fan of puzzles, doctor, because right now a lot of this isn't sticking together for me."

"Detective, whatever the creature that busted out of here was, it left a trail of destruction. The energy required to do what it does is far beyond the capabilities of even what you or I could ever dream to do with steroids." He motioned back to the gamma ray visuals. "Like I said, gamma rays are dense with energy. It appears that there's some correlation between the She-Hulk and gamma radiation.. If, theoretically, the She-Hulk is fueled by gamma energy, then not only is it providing her with raw power -"

Colvin's eyes lit up. "Then it's also leaving behind a trail."

Manfred nodded. "Absolutely."

"OK, doctor, I owe you a beer for this one." Colvin motioned Jones over, and the young officer sprinted over with a youthful energy. "Tell us, where's the nearest lab that can help us scan for gamma rays?"

* * *

Though her humanity was returned, Talia did not feel very human at all.

As she had awakened from her triggered change, her clouded mind struggled to rationalize the situation. Her last memory was standing on the platform in the center of her lab, limbs restrained, feeling the power of the creature take over her body and mind until everything faded to black. According to her plan, she was supposed to wake up on that platform, still restrained, with Rachel nearby to help her.

Instead, Talia was on the ground, no restraints, no platform, and no distance between her and her friend, with Rachel's arms wrapped around her.

Her eyes looked at Rachel's face as the doctor reached out and pushed away the long strands of her friend's sand-colored hair, which had to be peeled away from her freckled cheeks. _They're wet. Why are her cheeks and her hair wet?_

Her brain slowly continued to process. _Wet. Wet? Tears. She's…_

"Rachel," Talia mumbled. "You're crying. Why?"

Rachel sniffed and shook her head. "I'm fine Tal. I'm just glad you're OK."

Talia's senses returned to her bit by bit, and her brain fired a chill up her spine as a warning: This was not right. The doctor's eyes widened, and she immediately pivoted her head away from her friend and scanned the lab. It didn't take long to find that her platform was no longer in the middle of her lab, but instead embedded into the smoking remains of one of her monitoring machines. Searching a bit further, scattered shards of what had been her gamma cuffs were spread across the floor.

Talia's head whipped back to Rachel in realization. The creature had escaped.

"Rachel! Oh no no no, Rachel," said the doctor, grabbing her friend and pulling her in, tears rolling down her own cheeks. "Rachel are you OK?"

"Tal, seriously, I'm fine," her friend pleaded through sniffles. "I'm just, it's just - the adrenaline that's all."

Talia felt her heart began to pound against her chest in fear. "Did it hurt you?!" She began to examine Rachel's body, noticing her left arm was limp. "Oh my god, Rachel, _did it hurt you?!_ "

Rachel's eyes widened. "Talia, seriously, it's OK."

Talia's mind raced a mile-a-minute. Nothing made sense. Her mind was one giant black hole, void of any detail of anything that had just happened, and all she knew was that her plan had failed and she had put her friend in danger, unleashing the monster on the one person she had never wanted to hurt.

Her breathing became labored and her hands began to shake. Immediately, however, they were steadied by the grip of Rachel's hand.

"Talia," Rachel said. The doctor looked at the ground, her mind still in panic. "Talia, look at me!"

Talia shot her head up and met Rachel's cloudy eyes. "Talia," she pleaded, "stop it right now - stay with me here, OK?" Talia felt Rachel's grip on her hand tighten. "I need you to stay with me, become the analyzing doc who was in this lab earlier. Emotion is only going to cause you to change again, and what is that going to solve?"

Talia had no words, so she just nodded and took a deep breath. She felt her body slowly returning to her control.

"Rachel, tell me everything. Please, don't hold back. I need to know what happened."

Rachel ran her arms across her eyes quickly, attempting to quickly rub the tears away, also smearing her makeup slightly. "Tal, it was working at first. Really well actually. But then the She-Hulk got clever, she started testing the different cuffs. She'd pull on three of them, then break out of the four, then repeat with the others."

Talia found her fingers shooting to her forehead, effectively trying to massage her brain into working back at full speed. "It must've drawn the energy flow to the other cuffs, leaving one weak enough to break."

Rachel nodded in affirmation. Talia shook her head.

"I try to plan ahead, but I always underestimate. The creature always gets the better of me." Talia met Rachel's eyes. "And I keep dragging you into the middle of my battle with it. I guilted you into doing this"

"Tal, stop it," said Rachel. "I've told you I'll be there for you, and this is of my own volition. I chose to help you." She looked to the broken monitor, which the She-Hulk had destroyed with the platform. "What you need to do right now is stop worrying about me and check your experiment."

Talia's head snapped up. "Wait, it finished?"

"Yup, our friend didn't cause trouble until afterward. Though she did fry that computer."

Talia shook her head, though this time in excitement rather than sadness. The scientist shot to her feet and sprinted over to the row of equipment. "That machine isn't important."

Rachel smirked. A new splash of life was flowing through her friend's veins, providing a temporary respite for the gamma-irradiated blood that continuously tortured her. Rachel herself even felt happier in her friend's distraction, though images of the She-Hulk would not cease dominating her mind. She tried her best to ignore the uneasy pit in her stomach that would not go away. _I can recover later, she needs this now._

The scientist felt her fingers take over and typed furiously upon her keyboard, her eyes glued to the monitor. She squinted to make out the rows of tiny data, straining her unfocused eyes to try to make out any piece of information that would clue her into the secrets of her alter ego.

Two hands dropped to the sides of her head, and she felt two metallic bars settle atop her ears as two glass lenses dropped over her eyes, coming to a rest upon her nose. Immediately, everything was clear again. "Thanks, Rachel," said Talia, turning her head over her shoulder to thank her for her glasses.

"Don't thank me yet, doc," said her friend, holding up a long white lab coat. "Arms out." Only then did the cool air of the room bring forth goosebumps along her bare flesh, reminding her that she had yet to put on any sort of clothing. She held out her arms, and Rachel slipped on the long covering, the fabric pressing up against her naked back. Talia wasted no time returning her hands to the keyboard, letting the lab coat's front folds come to a rest upon her shoulders, draping down over her breasts and dangling down to her knees.

The now-clear data whirred down one of the screens, absorbed by Talia's eyes and analyzed by her brain. _The nanobots transmitted their data consistently, that's good,_ thought the scientist.

Rachel watched observantly from Talia's side, trying to read her friend's reaction. Now that she was back in scientist mode, emotion once again had more or less evaporated, leaving the raw emotion of the She-Hulk a distant memory.

Except for a sudden frown.

"What's wrong, Tal?"

"The nanobots … disappeared."

"Disappeared?" An oddly nonspecific word for her scientist friend analyzing specific data.

"Yes," Talia replied. She furrowed her brow in a mix of frustration and confusion. "They just vanished."

"Did the She-Hu-" Rachel caught herself. "Did the creature's immune system destroy them?"

Talia shook her head. "No, in fact I planned for that. Previous devices have been destroyed as soon as the metamorphosis took place, the enhanced metabolic response annihilating anything foreign.

"The nanobots, however," she continued, "were not destroyed during the transformation. In fact, they were sending data all through the creature's struggle. I have blood pressure, gamma-irradiation levels, blood cell count, really great information." Talia stabbed her index finger onto the keyboard, scrolling back and forth through the the readings. "But as I changed back, the nanobots just disappeared."

Talia turned away from the computer and walked past Rachel, heading toward the back of her lab. From a table, she grabbed a small wand-shaped device, and began waving it over her body - arm to arm, limb to limb, from her neck to her knees.

Rachel appeared to her side. "You scanning for the nanobots?"

Talia nodded. "There's no trace of them. Even if they had been destroyed, I would get some sort of signal. But nothing." She let the wand drop back to the table, clanking as it crashed back to the hard surface.

"For every answer, two more questions pop up, Rachel."

"True." Rachel put her hand on her friend's shoulders. "But silver linings here, Tal, you do have usable data, and you also have more of those nanobots."

Talia nodded. "Also true." The scientist let her left hand drop down to the front of her lab coat, pulling together the front to cover her more completely, and using her right hand to reach up and squeeze Rachel's.

"One last thing," Rachel said, before stopping herself.

"What?" asked the doctor.

 _Don't say it._ "She talked to me."

Talia didn't turn her head. "What? Who talked to you?"

"Her," Rachel responded. "The creature."

Talia stopped typing, her head pivoting to meet Rachel's gaze. "It talked?"

The moment was interrupted with a jump as a buzzer echoed across the chamber, jolting the two women with surprise. "What in the -" Talia mumbled as she ran over to a small square device on the wall, equipped with a speaker.

The scientist hovered a finger over the button hesitantly, allowing Talia to take a quick breath before pressing in. "Yes? Can I help you?"

" _Yes, hi,"_ came the voice from the other end. _"I'm told I can find a Dr. Talia Walker here."_

Talia delayed for a moment. "May I ask who this is?"

" _I'm Detective Colvin with the State Police. I'm here to talk about the She-Hulk."_


	6. Face to Face

Talia felt the detective's eyes on her as she walked out into the chilly night outside her lab. She had been slow to make her way over to him, and even slower to make eye contact. This was not out of nervousness, but in order to test the man's patience.

She made her eyes wander from the ground to distant trees, her vision going in and out of focus as she habitually fidgeted with her glasses, sliding the frames up and down the bridge of her nose. Her peripheral vision revealed the detective fidgeting anxiously, a subtle impatience in his stride. _I can use this._ Finally, she flicked her gaze upwards and met Martin Colvin face to face.

"Thank you for meeting with me, Dr. Walker," said Colvin. The detective was making rigid eye contact, almost to a fault, a move that Talia figured was an attempt to cover the fact his gaze had been wandering her body, sizing her up. His eyes were a deep brown,matching the darker strands of his salt and pepper hair, and days old demeanor was curt yet attempting to be polite - an attitude that made Talia feel a bit calmer. _He's here for help._

"I hope I'm not interrupting any important work," he added gruffly, clearly still agitated after Talia had insisted they meet outside instead of inside of her lab.

Talia, however, wasn't had already just dealt with an angry adult minutes earlier, after she had rebuffed Rachel's attempt to accompany her outside to talk with the detective. _You're wonderful, Rach, but hostility toward the police would not help me right now any more than this guy seeing my wrecked equipment inside._

"Oh no," she said. "I had just finished up, actually."

Colvin nodded. "Oh, good."

A brief pause lengthened into an almost uncomfortable silence, before Colvin reached into his deep brown jacket adorned with the crest of the state's police, withdrawing a manila folder containing a handful of papers which he proceeded to thumb through.

"Well, let me get down to business. What do you know about the She-Hulk?"

Talia felt a shiver at the name, but if there was one thing she was good at, it was suppressing emotion. _Most of the time, at least._

"Honestly, not as much as I'd like to, detective."

Colvin continued to look for eye contact unsuccessfully, releasing a smirk when he caught a brief glimpse of Talia's gaze. "Well looks like that puts us on the same page, doctor."

Colvin reached into his folder and withdrew a paper adorned with what Talia believed resembled a waveform. "I'm hoping you can help me understand more about this." He handed the paper over into her grasp.

It was indeed a waveform, she had been correct, and it was a waveform she was very familiar with.

"Gamma radiation," she said, peering through her eyeglasses.

"Yes." Colvin walked over to her side, and motioned to the graphic. "This was recorded at Buscema Lab, in the wake of the She-Hulk's attack." He glanced up to Talia, who again avoided eye contact, before moving his gaze back to the paper.

"Now," he continued, "I don't know two shits about the difference between a gamma wave and an ocean wave, other than a gamma wave is supposed to be dangerous. Add one dangerous piece of radiation to a dangerous thing running around, and you'll understand when I say I'm a bit worried, yes?"

Talia continued to peer at the graph, almost staring through it. _They know a lot more than I would've thought. I need to see how much more they have figured out._ "Oh yes, detective, I understand."

Colvin smirked again. "Good." He stepped away, replacing the manila folder back into his jacket. "You can keep that, don't know how much good it'll do you, but with any luck it'll make this whole thing a bit easier."

Talia folded the paper up and tucked it away inside her own coat, the white lab coat from her lab, that she wore over the sweatshirt and jeans she had hastily thrown on before running outside to meet the detective. "Waveforms aside - what exactly can I help you with, detective?"

Colvin smirked and laughed to himself. "I thought you'd never ask." Talia followed the arc of his right arm as the detective motioned to the trees. "Well, I've got a living urban legend walking around out there leaving behind gamma radiation-" he paused, then reversing his arm motion to point towards the lab building where Talia worked. "- and,from what your counterparts at all the other labs around here tell me, you've got equipment to detect this radiation, being a gamma specialist and all, inside there.

"To cut straight to the point: can you help me find the She-Hulk before she does anymore damage?"

 _OK, here we go._

The doctor faked a light chuckle that she forced from between her lips, raising her eyebrows and smirking as she once more straightened her glasses with the tip of her index finger. "Do you really need my help to find a giant, half-naked green woman stomping around town? She should be fairly easy to pick out of a crowd."

"If it were only that simple," said Colvin in an exasperated tone, before pausing momentarily to downplay his frustration. Talia could see by his mannerisms that he was hiding something that he had wanted to reveal.

"How is it not simple?" Talia said, challenging him. "Surely the police have a way to track a monster causing this much havoc. Again, big and green and destructive."

Colvin's eyebrows furrowed. "Let's just say it has a way of hiding in plain sight."

 _Does he know about the transformation? I did lose clothes there during the change._

"Like a shapeshifter? Surely there are more qualified people that -"

"Listen," interrupted Colvin, frowning. He closed his eyes and briefly rubbed his eyes, before running his hand back through his hair. "I know this sounds like a waste of time, but it isn't to me. You come highly recommended by Buscema Lab, and I'll take their word at it, meaning you're a smart one. I'd be thrilled if you said yes so we can continue our investigation.

"That said, if you have no intention of helping, please, however, don't waste my time. Wasting time makes me angry, and Dr. Walker, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

The faux smirk evaporated from Talia's face and she was quick to match Colvin's frown. "We're more similar on that than you'd think, detective."

Colvin paused, looking regretful for a second, before his face turned to weariness. "Sorry to be blunt, but I didn't get much sleep last night. I would greatly appreciate your help. However, I can also go door to door to find another scientist if I have to."

He reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet, sliding out a small, rectangular white card that he offered to Talia between his index and middle finger. "Take 'til the morning, just tell me yes or no by then, OK? Think on it."

As the doctor took the card, Colvin turned towards his unmarked police sedan, but then paused to look over his shoulder, a sliver of his brown eyes once again coming into view. "And let me know if you see any green monsters in your neighborhood."

As the detective departed in his vehicle, Talia pulled the open flaps of her lab coat together and crossed her arms over her chest, swaying in the wind. She grabbed in a deep breath of air with her mouth, letting it softly exhale through her nose.

 _Shit._

* * *

For almost half a year, Talia's laboratory had acted more as a home to her than her actual house - a side effect of her spending many of her waking hours attempting to cure herself of the creature that lurked within. Being within her actual house brought with it a nagging sensation that precious work was not being performed that could be leading her a step closer to removing her curse.

Tonight, however, home was her only option. A break from the lab was necessary after the chaotic experiment from earlier, and she had already imposed enough stress on Rachel for one day to even consider crashing there, as she often did to find some solace. As before, she had needed to convince Rachel that she would be OK on her own in order to get her to go her separate way and no doubt get the rest she deserved.

The doctor ran her thumb against the textured print of Detective Colvin's business card as she held it in her hand. His plea for her to help had been repeating in her mind the whole day, and, to her almost surprise, she was considering accepting it.

 _Saying "no" would be the easy way. It'd be stupid to get involved in the hunt for your own monster!_

Talia huffed and threw the card down upon a small desk that rested in the corner of her kitchen. _However he knows more about the creature than I like. If he knows that there's a human element to it, then how long before . . ._

Cutting off her thought, Talia shook her head and flipped the kitchen light off, moving toward her bedroom. _Be a scientist: No assumptions, only fact._

The doctor removed her jacket and tossed it on the ground, before waddling in her jeans and sweatshirt over to her bed and collapsing face first into the layers of covers above her mattress. She kicked her shoes off onto the floor as well before rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling.

No matter how physically tired she ever was when she laid down to rest, sleep refused to come easily to her. Her brain, which was going a mile a minute every waking moment of her days, resisted every urge to shut down, instead plaguing her with untested ideas, plans for tomorrow, analyses of things she had done and if she could have done them better. Like clockwork, her conversation with Detective Colvin was playing through her mind. Had her routine given her an advantage, or did she draw suspicion onto herself? _What am I going to do about helping him or not?_

Soon, her heavy eyelids finally were able to overpower even her busy mind, which began to slow from sheer lack of energy. As she began to fade, she realized that she hadn't truly slept in almost 48 hours, her last night having been spent as the creature after the incident in Buscema Lab. As Talia's breathing became deeper, her mind slipped into unconsciousness, and soon into sleep.

* * *

Talia stood in her lab, looking over the data from earlier in the day. She hadn't been thinking clearly earlier, being upset about what she had done to Rachel, and a second look on a rested mind could only help, not hurt.

As the doctor typed on the keyboard, she positioned her eyes to absorb the rows upon rows of data that flashed before her. Somewhere in there, she knew, would be a clue bringing her closer to understanding the nature of her beast, therefore making it easier to destroy it.

"You can't get rid of me, Tal," came a voice from behind her. Despite using Rachel's nickname for her, the voice was not that of her friend - it was deep and cold, the tone of the words instantly making her skin prickle. Talia, however, kept focused on the data, still continuing to scroll in front of her.

The deep voice echoed with a laugh. "Think science is going to save you? Science gave you me."

Talia spun around, and there was the creature, only the beast looked exactly like her.

The Talia-creature smirked, pulling its lab coat closed and crossing its arms across its chest. "Finally, I have your attention."

Talia faced her mirror image's cackling with a stone face. "You have nothing of me willingly."

"Oh," said the Talia-creature, "but I have all of you." She gestured to Talia's feet with her left hand, raising her index finger up slowly toward her head, before turning to point at her own body. "I am all of you. All thanks to what you did to yourself."

"No," growled the doctor. "I am me; you're an impostor. A thief."

The Talia-creature laughed. "Now, now, don't get angry at me - I'm not angry at you." It lifted its right arm and motioned outward, and from nothingness appeared Rachel, still and emotionless, staring blankly into nothing like she was a porcelain doll. "After all, not only have you let me out to play twice in one day, but you also put your friend's life in danger."

The doctor lost a breath. "I...I didn't do it intentionally."

The Rachel-doll, eyes wide and blank, whispered, "intentionally."

The Talia-creature moved her arms to the other side of it, and there appeared the doll-like doppelganger of Martin Colvin, the detective she had met earlier. "You've also been careless. Cops are getting suspicious of you, Tal."

"Don't call me Tal!" Talia yelled.

"Tal," whispered the Rachel-doll, which was then echoed by the Colvin-doll.

Talia put her hands on her head. "Stop it, stop it! You're ruining everything!" She ran forward and drew back her hand, before arcing it in front of her directly into the cheekbone of the Talia-creature. Her mirror image's head snapped back, but its smile grew wider. "Puny."

The Talia creature's body began to stir, and instantly it started to grow in size, clothing tearing off its body and green hue flowing across its skin. Talia could only look up as her creature took its true form. She tried to move, tried to yell, tried to run away, but she found herself paralyzed. The creature's hand wrapped itself around Talia's neck, and powerful jade muscles flexed as she felt herself lifted off the ground, feet dangling helplessly.

* * *

"Oh god no!" Talia shouted as she sprung up from her bed, sweat rolling down her forehead. Her eyes were a deep, blazing green as her labored breaths wheezed in and out. Her right hand had found an anchor on the wooden bedpost at the corner of her bed, and with a surge of energy her fingers sunk into the wood, splintering the cylinder and sending pieces flying across the room.

Talia arched her back and curled her legs, rising herself from the bed as her body began to change. The thick fabric of her sweatshirt drew tight as her torso began to enlarge, before it finally gave out, bursting open at the center between her expanding breasts and splitting down her midriff. Engorged biceps exploded out of her sleeves, while thick and flexing thigh muscles tore the thick denim of her tight jeans down its seams, freeing newly empowered legs that kicked at the bed.

As the metamorphosis surged forth, the changing Talia lunged forward onto her knees and grasped at her head with her hands, her shoulders expanding and cracking as her back muscles popped her bra clasp open and completed the disintegration of her sweatshirt. A wave of green began to wash over her body as her layered brown hair lengthened and thickened into a jade mane that fell over her enraged green pupils.

The bed frame began to creak before violently crashing to the ground, breaking under the pressure of the new form atop it. Once more born into the world, the She-Hulk unleashed a deep and powerful growl that shattered the bedroom windows and echoed her pain into the night.


	7. Night of the She-Hulk

Detective Martin Colvin screeched his unmarked car to a halt next to the lineup of police vehicles that were blockading the Pallas city roadways. Clad in a hastily buttoned shirt and worn out jeans that were obscured underneath a medium, knee-length grey jacket, Colvin jumped out of the car and ran up to the group of uniformed officers stationed behind vehicles. He quickly shoved the bottom flap of his coat open and patted at the side of his pants, feeling for his pocket. Inside, his fingers grasped the familiar shape of his badge and wiggled it out.

"Somebody tell me what the hell is going on?" he shouted to nobody in particular, flashing his detective's shield for anybody who bothered to check.

One of the officers turned their flashlight on Colvin's badge, and flipped it off seconds later, satisfied by what he saw. Colvin recognized the patch on the man's uniform as belonging to Pallas City Police. _Local cops. Those were the days._

"Can't tell you too much, detective," said the officer. "We got a call about an hour back about a She-Hulk sighting downtown." He paused briefly. Colvin assumed others had laughed at him tonight every time he had made mention of the monster, but the detective didn't even waste a smile.

The officer cleared his throat, seemingly surprised yet content at Colin's seriousness, and continued. "Well, we figured it was some punks pulling a prank on us, but based on what happened last night, and the night being slow and all, we drove and checked it out, and -"

"You found out she actually exists," Colvin interrupted. "Welcome to my world." Colvin frowned, turning his head to the police cars flashing their red and blue lightbars as he rubbed his sleepless eyes. "Did you clear the area?"

The officer nodded. "Seeing it's after midnight, there weren't a lot of people down here, thankfully. We moved everybody we could find away, and set up a 10-block perimeter to contain her."

The detective grunted in approval. _Why is the She-Hulk out again so soon after the lab burglary last night? I figured our Jane Doe would be laying low for a while far from here. Unless our mystery woman is after another target._

"Any reports of break-ins, robberies, or the like?" Colvin asked.

The officer shook his head. "No, sir. But plenty of property destruction. Flipping cars, damaging storefronts. Any attempts to approach has made it worse."

 _Is this deliberate? Is she trying to make a statement? Does she know I'm looking for her?_

"Alright then," Colvin said, looking beyond the cars out toward the barren city streets. "Where is she now?"

* * *

The She-Hulk roared into the night air; she wanted all of the puny humans around to hear her anger and stay far away.

Cars with flashing lights had gathered a distance away from her, and many of those puny humans were hiding behind them, clutching weapons. She-Hulk grinded her teeth together; no weapon would be any match for her.

Rage flowed through her veins and her body called on her to release it. Clenching her fists and flexing her gamma-powered muscles, she moved toward a lamppost and backhanded it with minimal effort, knocking it off its support and sending it crashing to the sidewalk. Reaching down, she lifted the large, metallic pole with ease over her head, and she launched it towards the barricade of humans, and watched as they scattered as the pole landed atop one of the cars with the flashing lights, crushing it. Those lights were flashing no more.

"No more lights!" she screamed, yet her rage was not quenched.

Her first thoughts that night, when she awoke, had been of anger, fear, and confusion. Her eyes had opened and seen walls. Always walls. She-Hulk hated being contained.

Her brain had been traveling a thousand miles per hour, and water was in her eyes and falling down her cheeks, and she didn't know why. Despite there being no sign of her, the walls reeked with the feel of Talia Walker, and that made She-Hulk uncomfortable.

She had screamed violently from within the room and had heard shattering in the distance. Instantly, before her mind had been able to even had time to debate a decision, her hearing had recognized the echo of open air and her body had figured out her escape route. As her legs carried her forth, the remaining walls and windows between her and the night air had fallen beneath her might. With the wind at her back, she had just kept leaping, trying to get as far away as possible.

For this short time she had been free. But the humans were trying to trap her again - just like puny Talia had tried with her chains.

She-Hulk growled and felt unbridled rage flow through her. The minimal energy she had used to toss the lamppost was already replenished. She glared down at the humans once more, and saw that they had reformed their group at one of the other cars with flashing lights. Frustrated, she turned and called upon her powerful legs to leap in the opposite direction, away from them.

Landing sharply upon the street once more, She-Hulk stumbled several paces before attaining her balance. She utilized the momentum to guide her path forward, bounding down the paved downtown streets with powerful strides. The red and blue lights behind her faded into obscurity.

The respite was temporary, however. Her bright green eyes narrowed as more cars with flashing lights appeared around the corner. More humans. She-Hulk recognized their cowardice as these ones also hid behind their vehicles, pulling out their weapons as the others had just done. Any second they would attack, and try to cause her pain. _Puny humans won't leave me alone! Just leave me alone!_

This time she refused to turn around.

* * *

Colvin couldn't believe his eyes. There she was in living color: his bogey man, his bigfoot - the She-Hulk. A barely recognizable speck of green mass in the distance.

And she was coming straight for them.

He didn't hear the command given to open fire, but the deafening sound of the firearms prompted him to shield his ears with his hands as he placed distance between himself and the squad. Between the muzzle blasts from the firearms and the bar lights atop the variety of police vehicles, the night sky was ablaze.

The She-Hulk, however, was a force of nature. The bullets that were on target harmlessly bounced off her green skin and did nothing to change her course. The distance between the monster and the barricade was rapidly decreasing. The fear across the area was palpable.

The sound of gunfire was instantly traded with a chorus of screams as the She-Hulk charged straight into the barricade. The creature's massive shoulder crumpled the strong frame of the first police cruiser like it were made of aluminum; Colvin had never witnessed such raw power. The cruiser squealed as its tires skidded across the pavement, coming to rest what seemed to be a block away.

Before Colvin could turn his attention back to the creature, the She-Hulk had already made her next move, crouching down and flipping one of the other vehicles onto its roof. With a mighty kick, the car careened across the pavement into a nearby storefront, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake before it exploded through a pane of glass. She then turned her attention to an unmarked SUV. With a quick hop, she landed upon the roof and began to crush the frame into oblivion, bringing her fists down repeatedly like a green jackhammer.

Several officers opened fire once more, but the bullets were no more effective in close range than they had been earlier. Many began to turn and run. His instincts told him to do the same, but Colvin couldn't look away. This was his first time seeing her so close. The naturally inquisitive mind that had earned him the detective's badge wanted to observe.

The creature was a jade giant. She seemed to tower nearly seven-foot tall, and her frame was burlier than the toughest football tackle. Bold green skin covered every inch of her. Dark green hair, long and wild, flailed through the air in her rage, coming to rest across her broad shoulders in those brief moments of pause. Columns of powerful abdominal muscles rippled against the taut skin of her torso as limbs that seemed comparable to tree trunks anchored her hulking body. Muscles - more than he had recalled seeing on any living creature in his life - flexed angrily with untapped power just waiting to crush the next object that dared get in her way.

For all the attributes that echoed of the supernatural, however, the truly fascinating elements to Colvin were the traces of humanity that remained on the She-Hulk - hints to the monster's alter ego, just as he had found in the lab. Tattered strips of denim hung from the creature's broad hips, the sparse remains of what had once served as jeans in her human form. Breasts lay bare among the mass of muscles, a not-so-subtle reminder that his adversary - monster or not - was still a woman underneath. Lastly, the She-Hulk 's bright green eyes contained a rage beyond any human, but also what he perceived to be a hidden vulnerability that any human could relate to.

From the guffawed stares of a handful of officers that had taken cover near him, he wasn't the only one in a state of trance. Most had heard only the stories of the creature, some maybe cheap camera footage. Now, she was here, rage incarnate.

Having effectively pummeled the SUV into scrap, the She-Hulk panned her head in search of her next target. Colvin felt the icy stare focus on him and the men and women next to him, and he had the sudden urge to prevent himself from ending up as a pile of goo next to the vehicles.

"She-Hulk!" he shouted at the creature, his hands cupped around his mouth to amplify. He felt the officers' incredulous stares join She-Hulk's as he became the center of attention. "Whoever you are, listen up!"

He was met with a vicious roar that pulsed through the chilled night air toward him.

Colvin turned to the female officer to his left. "I'm going to distract her, get your people out of here. Go!" She nodded wordlessly, her eyes portraying a healthy skepticism but also an eagerness to leave.

The detective stepped forward, moving himself away from the other police, and was happy to see the creature's eyes following him and not the others. _Man up, Colvin._ "I don't understand you, She-Hulk," he continued, gulping in a mouthful of air as if it were a dose of courage. "Robbing scientists, destroying property, now attacking police. What do you hope to accomplish?"

The She-Hulk didn't answer. Instead, she continued to bare her teeth, leaning on her leg muscles. One leap would close the gap between them easily.

He shot his eyes to his left and saw the other officers making their move for a nearby alley. His eyes then met with the She-Hulk's once more, hoping she hadn't seen his lapse in eye contact. "We can put an end to this if you turn yourself in."

He could see that the creature was thinking, but her face also betrayed a confusion. Colvin furrowed his own brow. The evidence at the lab had shown a woman who could run laps around safeguards and security systems, yet this creature seemingly lacked the brain power to find her way out of a paper bag. _Yet they're one and the same, right?_

"You may scare the rest of them, but I know your secret," Colvin said, bringing his hand back over his head, fingers moving through his hair. The She-Hulk growled at him in a warning. The detective, however, put on his bravest smirk. "You may try to scare us all with the monster act, but behind all of it, you're still just a human."

Colvin didn't have time to react before the She-Hulk was on him. The ground shook as she landed, the shockwave sending him to his hands and knees as the creature towered over him. He tried to breathe but his lungs were paralysed.

"I. Am. Not. HUMAN!" screamed the She-Hulk. Colvin clutched his ears in pain. Suddenly a huge pressure erupted in his chest as he felt the monster's foot contact his torso, a harsh kick sending him tumbling across the pavement into a nearby wall. The impact with the brick knocked the wind out of him, and waves of pain spread throughout every corner of his body.

Again, the She-Hulk was on him before his senses had time to adjust. He felt the fabric of his jacket grow tight as she lifted him off the ground singlehandedly clutching a fistful of the material. She raised him up until their gaze met once more at eye level. He wondered if she could see the fear through his eyes.

"Puny human," she spat. "I am not like you."

"No," Colvin hissed. "You're worse."

The creature's eyes darkened. _She's going to throw me!_ Acting on adrenaline, Colvin immediately grabbed a hold of the She-Hulk's jeans, grasping at the frayed waist with his left hand and one of the remaining pockets with his right in an attempt to anchor himself. It failed. He heard a growl, and with a tug he easily lost his grip. The She-Hulk threw him to the ground, and pain shot through his sides. _Shit! Cracked a rib, at least._

"Stay down!" came an amplified voice from the distance. Colvin's eyes widened as he went flat and covered his head with his hands.

The sound of bullets filled the air once more, though this time the familiar droning was consistent with semiautomatic rifles. Attempting to ignore the pain in his side, Colvin cautiously looked up and saw his saviors in the form of a SWAT van pulled up a healthy distance away from the now-broken police barricade. A fully-geared unit, some positioned inside the van with others spreading out in waves, unleashed their firepower all at once upon the green giant.

The bullets continued to bounce off of the She-Hulk's thick skin, but this time her face contorted in a twist of pain. The creature turned away from Colvin and into the barrage, lifting her hand in front of her face in an attempt to shield herself from their full force. Colvin used the opportunity to roll away toward the alley, cursing to himself as his injured rib throbbed with pain.

As he looked back up from a safer distance, what he saw looked promising. The sheer amount of bullets seemed to be succeeding at slowing the She-Hulk's movement. As the monster took several slow paces forward, the SWAT team took turns continuing to unleash their weaponry on her.

Taking what looked to be an exaggerated step, the She-Hulk instead brought her foot down with an incredible amount of force, splitting the pavement and sending a shockwave rippling through the ground. Several SWAT members stumbled off balance, their gunfire tapering off. WIth the decreased rate of fire, the She-Hulk sprung forward, throwing herself into the side of the SWAT van like a battering ram. The van crashed to its side and began to skid, carrying with it the members of the squad still inside.

Those outside began to open fire once more. The She-Hulk spun and roared at them, backhanding three at once square in the chest with her arm, launching them skidding down the road atop their body armor. With a quick spin, her mammoth hands shot out and clasped the barrels of two rifles. With a fantastic squeeze, the weapons crumbled beneath her might.

Her victory was short-lived. A look of triumph evaporated as the monster rapidly raised her arm to protect herself from a tear gas mortar that instead hit her square in the chest. The impact caused a cloud of smoke to erupt across her upper body, and the creature began to cough in fits as she was consumed by the irritant. A second SWAT squad, arrived by a fresh van, poured out of the side and fanned out. The She-Hulk was dazed. Encouraged by the success, several more tear gas canisters sailed through the air and hit the behemoth, creating a cloud of smoke to surround the beast.

Once more the She-Hulk screamed. This yell, however, was of anguish and pain - a cry consistent with the vulnerability Colvin had briefly seen in the gamma-irradiated eyes of the creature. Consistent with a human.

The gas cloud parted and the She-Hulk leapt from the haze and into the air, landing on the roof a nearby business. The SWAT opened fire with bullets once more, but the creature wasted no time before propelling herself again off in a new direction.

Colvin sucked in a lungful of night air and released in a large sigh. _Smooth move, asshole. Almost get yourself killed, and now's she's been scared off._ _How the hell am I ever going to catch that thing?_ Still lying on the ground, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the pavement, clenching his fists tightly and pounding them on the ground a few times in frustration.

After another deep breath, the detective looked up and saw his vehicle was still standing. Against his better judgment, he pushed himself to his feet, ignoring his injuries, and ran to his car. _You're an idiot_ , he thought as he turned the ignition and roared past the SWAT van in pursuit of the creature that had almost killed him.

* * *

She-Hulk landed clumsily on one of the downtown rooftops and jerked to her knees, tumbling forward and falling off of the roof down a distance to the street. The pavement cracked beneath her with a deafening crunch.

The creature lay motionless. She couldn't see. Her face felt on fire.

Her eyes glued shut, she contemplated the pain. Flashes of her last time of consciousness flooded her mind. Shackles. Walls. Puny Talia.

The other human, however, had helped that pain go away.

"Raytch-el!" She-Hulk called out desperately. She needed the pain to go away once more. She thought of the woman; her image helped give She-Hulk a focus through the pain, however brief. "Ray-CHELLLLL!"

There was no answer. She-Hulk growled, forcing herself to roll over and climb to her feet. The human who had called herself "friend" was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps the human was just like the others and didn't care about her.

She-Hulk blindly pushed forward. She sprinted down the street briefly before stumbling into a parked car, prompting an alarm to respond with a shrill screech. The monster flipped the vehicle into a nearby store in response, and fled in the opposite direction.

Her vision was slowly returning, but her surroundings remained blurry and unrecognizable. Her body no longer was guiding her down the right path; everything was an obstacle. Around any corner could be more flashing lights, more painful gas.

That thought made her angry. And anger made her strong.

With a booming roar, She-Hulk banished the doubts from her mind and charged forward without her vision. Why did she care if she hit a car, or ran into the flashing lights, or the puny humans? She was stronger than all of them. If they dared block her, she'd make them pay.

She-Hulk ran forward, her thick, muscular arms ahead of her, and burst through the side of the nearest building, her limbs tearing through concrete, glass, and drywall with ease. Her powerful bounds quickly brought her through the interior with amazing speed, her arms continuing to clear her path until she once more was able to tear through the thick wall to the outside once more.

Her ears pricked up soon after with the sound of tires. She pivoted her head in its direction and the blurs that her eyes could interpret lit up blue and red. The puny humans were stupid too; they were chasing _her._

She relied on her ears and her body to guide her in a way her eyes couldn't. She could hear the yells of the humans gathering once more, the click of their weapons as they prepared to attack her. She could smell hints of the gas that had blinded her shortly ago as their smoke weapon was launched in her direction.

Her senses firing, She-Hulk's arm shot out in front of her and her thick fingers wrapped themselves around the cannister. She let the momentum of the weapon carry her arm around as she curved its direction, allowing her body to spin with it, before she tossed their weapon back at them, hearing the gas explode amongst the humans. As they yelled, coughed and attempted to flee, She-Hulk was on them, swatting their weapons to the ground and crushing them as quickly as they could draw them. They attempted to hide inside their vehicle, but that only provided her further cause to smash the front of their armored car with all her might, bringing her fists down until she felt the sparks of fire ignite beneath her.

The sound of more vehicles and more humans filled her ears. Soon after, She-Hulk felt the tiny pangs of their bullets bouncing off of her skin, and the fiery feel of their gas weapon being launched against her. She shut her eyes tight and held her breath; she had been surprised once, but not again.

Drawing deep into her core, She-Hulk plunged her hands through the scrap metal on the side of the human's vehicle, and called upon the limitless strength within her muscles to lift it over her head, and with a yell, she heaved the flaming van in a burning arc through the air and listened as it exploded in a ball of flame in between where the humans were gathered.

Slowly, the bullets and the gas began to stop. However, there was no stopping her; she was the strongest one there was.

As her vision grew clearer, she saw the puny humans running. Finally, she had forced them to leave her alone. She yelled in victory.

She-Hulk was the strongest one there was.

* * *

She-Hulk completed another leap into the night air once more, soaking up the freedom from the barrage of bullets, gas, and blinking lights that had been following her all night. They were nowhere to be seen now, and that made her happy.

The creature soared majestically in rainbow arcs, using her powerful legs to instantly propel her skyward every time she landed, hopping from road to road, rooftop to rooftop. As the threat of the humans faded into memory, the lengths of her jumps began to shorten, their heights not as impressive.

Soon, She-Hulk landed on one of the city roads and let her legs absorb the impact, allowing the momentum carry her forward several steps instead of heading back upward. Instinctively, she tensed up her muscles defensively, glaring around for any signs of threats. If she had to, she was ready to smash once more.

But there were no threats, not anymore. The humans and their guns had fled from her power. Satisfied, She-Hulk felt herself relax.

Letting her feet carry her slowly across the pavement, She-Hulk weaved her way around parked cars and the sidewalk, moving parallel to the storefronts that lined the streets one-by-one. As she moved, she slowly noticed a doppelganger in the window. She quickly tensed up again, before realizing it was only her reflection - a mirror image staring back at her from the pane glass window.

She-Hulk found herself drawn to the reflection. She hadn't ever looked at herself, not like this.

The humans were small, of different colors, frail. She was large, strong, and a different color from any of them. She was different, but that's what she wanted. She was the She-Hulk, or so Rachel the human had called her. She was glad she wasn't human.

Her green eyes found their match in the mirror, and her gaze locked into a trance as the creature reached out and met her counterpart's fingers on the glass. All traces of anger slowly melted away as the green in the eyes began to vanish. The rigid, hulking muscles of the creature began to vanish, leaving behind the soft curves of a woman. Jade skin faded into a pale hue. The large, wild green mane atop her head retracted into a frayed heap of brown hair. A brain focused on rage fell asleep, while the dormant brain of the scientist awoke.

Talia opened her eyes, and found her gaze locked with her mirror image's blue eyes. She was...human. _Where am I?_

Shaking off the look, the scientist looked upon her reflection as her senses slowly returned to her. She found herself averse to her reflection: half naked, scuffed with dirt, tatters of jeans barely clinging to the curve of her hips - the aftermath of the creature having taken over once more.

Tearing herself away from her reflection, Talia took a few steps before collapsing to her knees. Her energy was sapped and her body weak from its third metamorphosis over the past 36 hours. Despite wanting to roll over and collapse, the doctor pushed herself back to her feet and forced herself to move.

As her brain slowly returned to its old self, she recognized that she was in downtown Pallas, albeit a bit more empty than usual despite being night. Talia however wasn't counting on being alone forever; she had to make her way to safety, to clothes, to rest. WIthout her cell phone, she was on her own for help. _If I can just get to a phone to call Rachel._

As Talia walked, she felt her heart slowly inch up into her throat. She was tired. She was tired of it all. Tired of not knowing when the change was going to happen, and what the disastrous results of the monster being unleashed would be. She felt chills down her spine imagining why she was in the city after her metamorphosis. _What has it done this time?_

It was no matter. Talia knew resolutely what her next step had to be. It was the only answer.

* * *

Colvin had followed the monster recklessly. He found himself swerving around city blocks to trail the fleeing She-Hulk, as she continued to encounter one group of police and subdue another. He had watched her successive battles with the SWAT team, and their ineffective attempts to stop her.

The detective cursed himself for thinking it, but the She-Hulk was simply _incredible_. Every weakness they had found and exploited, she quickly had learned from and adapted. Bullets, tear gas, barricades - none served to stop her for long.

This had been his closest encounter with the beast after four months of thankless work following in her wake. He had tested the limits of his luck with her earlier, and despite all common sense telling him the opposite, he wasn't going to let his near-death at her hands stop him now. _She still may kill me yet, who knows._

After hearing a booming crash, the detective had steered his car and that direction, but he saw nothing. The sounds soon stopped, and he found himself driving aimlessly, scouring each block for a sign. By the time the sun had started to come up, he found himself collapsed in exhaustion against his steering wheel, his car pulled over onto the side of the road in a location he couldn't have been bothered to identify with his weary eyes.

Suddenly, his phone rang, making Colvin almost bounce out of his seat into his car's ceiling. "Son of a bitch," he yelled to himself, shaking his head at allowing a ringtone to scare him just as much as the She-Hulk had. Sighing, he attempted to rub the sleep out of his eyes, at the same time shielding them from the red rays of the morning sun as he answered the call. "Colvin speaking."

"Detective," said the woman on the other line. "You wanted an answer by morning, and I have it now."

Colvin's sleep-deprived brain was confused. "Who's this?"

"Talia Walker. We spoke about the monster last night."

"Doctor Walker?" asked Colvin. The scientist had completely slipped from his mind once the She-Hulk had made her appearance. "Oh yes, the She-Hulk."

Now that the creature had vanished into thin air though, her voice was much welcomed. "Glad to hear your voice. I hope you're willing to help me find the She-Hulk - we need that now more than ever. Last night was a rough night."

There was a pause. "I can definitely help you find the creature, detective," Talia responded, "because the creature is me."


	8. In the Hands of the Law

Talia had never been in a police car before, let alone the back of one. She had to remind herself periodically that she was doing the right thing, even though she had been certain about making the phone call after awakening from the metamorphosis the night before.

The detective, Colvin, was silent in the driver's seat. When he had arrived, obviously sleep-deprived, to their arranged pickup location, he had read her the Miranda Rights and cuffed her, but those were the only words he had spoken since. Every so often Talia noticed that he would glance back in the mirror, but if they happened to make eye contact, he would quickly divert his gaze away. She could feel a silent anger emanating from him ever since he had picked her up, but she knew there'd be plenty of time to address the unspoken thoughts soon enough.

While the ride in the police car was new, being cuffed wasn't. Talia's experience with handcuffs was still fresh in her mind - at least with her gamma cuffs the day before. They had failed to secure the monster after she had forced herself to transform in order to conduct her experiment. She knew that these, the standard police-issue metallic handcuffs that secured her arms behind her back, would easily stand no chance against the monster's might if she were to change - despite Colvin fastening them tightly enough as if he believed they might. That knowledge kept reminding her to remain calm, that this was what she had chosen, and that there was no reason to be alarmed.

She, however, still was feeling both ashamed and self-conscious. Her changes had always left her vulnerable, but here she was, half naked, at the mercy of somebody who hated her. While she personally didn't commit the atrocities, she couldn't blame the feeling - she was responsible for the existence of the monster. Plus, she knew that nobody who looked at her would see a difference between her and the beast. To them, she was the "She-Hulk;" even without the green skin.

One thing she could thank her lucky stars for at the moment was the fact that guilt wasn't one of the emotions the triggered the change.

Talia leaned back onto the leather seat, feeling the cool surface against her bare back. The handcuffs resisted her instinctive attempt to draw her hands over her naked torso to preserve her warmth - and her modesty. Instead, she awkwardly tried not to press her weight against her handcuffed arms.

The car pulled into the lot of the Pallas police station, and she felt herself resigning herself to whatever fate Colvin had in store for her.. Despite that, Talia still felt herself slinking in her seat slightly as she caught sight of numerous other police vehicles.

She had figured out a way to slip into a nearby library to access their phone, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she began to look up any information she could find about the creature's exploits in the city. Images and descriptions of the monster's attacks against police and the sheer destruction of property made her sick to her stomach. The monster was uncontrollable. The revelation had only made her double down on turning herself in. Having to face the eyes of the officers her other half had no doubt hurt was not something she was looking forward to, however.

Colvin parked the vehicle and briskly removed himself from the driver's seat, turning and removing his long jacket which he had been wearing, revealing the occupied gun holster that was strapped around his chest. Talia felt chills spread up her skin, but forced herself to not worry and looked away. The detective opened the door and reached in with his right arm, grabbing her left arm and guiding her out to her feet. Silently, he draped his long jacket over her half-naked body and fastened it at the front, providing her with some modesty.

Hand at her back, he guided her inside the police station. To her somewhat relief, none of the other officers seemed to take any particular notice of her, looking up slightly to see who was passing them by, but then going back to whatever they were doing after satisfying their brief curiosity. Their disinterest, Talia guessed, meant that none of them knew who she was, and that Colvin hadn't shared the information. Whether that was by choice or just due to lack of time between arresting her and bringing her in, she didn't know.

After weaving through some hallways, they arrived outside a door, where Colvin had her wait. He looked to a nearby woman in uniform, drawing his badge and flashing it to her. "Colvin, state police. This the one I was told I could use?" The woman nodded, and Colvin then nodded to Talia with his chin. "Do you have what I asked for?"

The female officer nodded once more. "I'll go grab it." As she left, Colvin opened the door and lead Talia inside.

Talia instantly recognized it as a questioning room, or an interrogation room as she frequently thought of them while watching countless episodes of her favorite police procedural dramas. Here she was, about to experience the real thing. The room was barren, except for the security cameras mounted on the walls, plus a plain metallic table between a set of uncomfortable-looking chairs. Colvin, however, kept them standing.

Moments later, the female officer returned with a bag, and handed it to Colvin. The detective nodded his thanks, then waited for her to leave the room before shutting the door. He went to her and silently unfastened the jacket he had draped over her, draping it over his arm. The heavily air-conditioned room instantly drew goosebumps across her bare skin. Withdrawing a key from his belt, he played with the handcuffs and unfastened them, freeing her arms. Talia only got a moment to stretch them and rub the marks which the cuffs had left on her wrist before the detective thrust the bag into her arm. "Put these on," he said, motioning to what he had just given her. "But don't get comfortable, those are going back on right after."

Talia nodded, and opened the bag to find what looked to be a pair of gym shorts, a slightly oversized t-shirt, and a pair of dollar bin flip flops. She, however, was not feeling particularly picky, and was grateful for the chance to dress herself in something. She brought her hands to her hips and allowed the ragged remains of her destroyed jeans to drop to the cold floor, and quickly stepped into the baggy gym shorts, pulling the elastic up over her hips then tying the strings at her waist. After securing those, she pushed her arms one at a time through each of the sleeves, then slipped the shirt on over her head, pulling it down and letting it drape over her body. Finally, she dropped the flip flops on the floor and wiggled her bare feet onto them, pushing her toes through the plastc thongs. Colvin grabbed the bag, then lead her over to the table, sitting her down at the chair.

There was no time to get comfortable, however. Colvin motioned for her to place her arms facing forward on the table, which she complied with. The detective reattached the handcuffs, fastening the chains through a bolt on the table, then tugging at them briefly to make sure they were secured. Satisfied, he went and took a seat at the opposite end of the table. For the first time since she had been arrested, Detective Martin Colvin made intentional eye contact.

"Let me just cut straight to the chase here, Dr. Walker," he said, a scowl forming on his face. "If you are who you say you are, if you are the She-Hulk, then you're responsible for four months of hell. You've attacked police officers and innocent people. You've caused endless amounts of destruction around this city and these towns.

"I don't know why you do it. Fun? Sick pleasure? To be honest I don't give a damn. You looked me straight in the eye last night and pretended to be innocent, then proceeded to unleash one of your most destructive nights ever. To think I almost trusted you.

"I don't know if you all of a sudden grew a conscience, or if you're planning this as a setup, but I warn you, if it's the latter, then I warn you: If I even see a hint of green I won't hesitate to put a bullet in you."

Talia went to open her mouth in response, but the words weren't there. She could feel the anger radiating out of the man like he were a nuclear reactor, yet she didn't blame him. Those were many of the same feelings she herself had for the monster lurking inside her. At the very least, their shared hatred of the creature was something they had in common right now. Yet, she couldn't dare let loose her emotions as he was.

"Detective, believe me, I understand," Talia began. "I know-"

"Do you know?" Colvin interrupted, standing up and raising his voice. "Because I don't think you do!"

Talia swallowed back the lump in her throat and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and centering herself, before exhaling softly. _Don't let him get a rise out of you._ "Listen, detective, you have every reason to doubt me, hate me, want to lock me up, all that. I promise I can explain everything. But I have to ask something of the utmost importance: We have to keep things calm in here."

Colvin threw back his head and unleashed a hearty laugh. "I'm sorry, doctor, but you don't get to make requests in here. I don't think you know how this works."

Talia shook her head. "Oh, but I do." She closed her eyes and forced her lungs to inhale a gulp of air, then let it exhale slowly through her nose. "The thing you have to understand is that I don't control the creature. She's brought out by stressful situations, by anger, by fear. If I lose control -"

Colvin slammed his hands on the table. "If you change, I told you, I'll shoot you myself before you can hurt another person!"

"By the time you did it'd already be too late!" Talia shouted, reaching a volume that her voice rarely achieved. She felt her heart accelerate and her hands clenched in a ball of anger. "Trust me, if the monster gets out then it's game over for all of us!"

The statement seemed to catch Colvin off guard. He pursed his lips and remained silent, continuing to stare at her but obviously thinking. Talia, feeling her anger bubbling beneath her skin, instantly remembered to start breathing again, dispersing her emotions through a few quick, deep breaths. _Stay in control._

"Detective, listen," she continued in a calmer, pleading tone. "I don't need you to absolve me, but I do need you to believe me." Talia leaned forward onto the table, pressing her weight onto her chained arms. "I turned myself in because I need help. I'm a prisoner in my own body. I've done all I've can to stop the monster, but it's become too much."

Colvin took a deep breath himself before sitting back down. "OK, I'll play this game for now. You're saying that all of this chaos caused by the She-Hulk is her action alone, not yours."

Talia nodded. "Yes. When the creature takes control, I have no power to stop it until I change back."

"Awfully convenient, wouldn't you say, doctor?" Colvin answered, his eyebrows lifted skeptically. "You say you're the She-Hulk, but 'you don't have control," meaning you're not responsible for any of these crimes."

"I never said that," Talia responded grimly. "I take full responsibility for everything it's done."

"That's a start," Colvin said, before reaching for a folder that had been left for him in the room. He flipped it open and began sifting through a noteworthy stack of pages that lay within. "What about Buscema Labs? Breaking and entering, disabling a rather impressive security system, stealing highly valuable scientific nanobots. Did the She-Hulk do that on her own?"

Talia felt her stomach sink. "No, that was me."

Colvin smirked. "So, the She-Hulk may be a monster," he said, "but you're no angel yourself."

"I never claimed to be." Talia motioned as best as she could back to herself with her chained hands. "What I am, however, is a woman desperate for the same thing you are: to rid the world of this beast."

"That doesn't give you

* * *

the right to sidestep the law," he replied.

Talia nodded sadly. "No," she agreed, "it doesn't."

She met Colvin's eyes once more. "I've made plenty of mistakes, and I have to live with my choices. I don't want this to be mistake, so do whatever you can to keep me away from anybody I can hurt, both as a human and as a monster."

The fire Colvin had been staring back at her with seemed to have dimmed. "Gladly."

* * *

The hallway was thin and narrow, parallel rows of chipped white brick framing a cold concrete floor and a paneled ceiling. At the end of the corridor a long, black box hung on the wall, with an ancient-looking phone receiver connected via coiled wire.

Talia's footsteps in her cheap flip flops echoed down the hallway alongside the steps of her escort as she approached the phone. Her mind instantly flashed to the countless television shows and movies she had seen over her life featuring the fabled "one telephone call." Like the ride in the police car, she had never guessed she would ever be in the position of needing to make one.

She walked up to the phone and stared blankly. Next to her, the male cop who had escorted her leaned up against the wall, looked at his watch, then crossed his arms. "Dial nine, then one to call out," he said in a bored tone that both betrayed he had repeated this countless times, and the fact that he still most likely had no idea that she was the monster who attacked her whole force last night. _Is Colvin not telling anybody to protect me?_

"You have five minutes," finished the officer.

Talia picked up the receiver and brought her finger to the array of numbers, but hesitated.

After transforming back to human, the usual voice in her mind had kept telling her to call Rachel instead of Colvin. Deep down, she had wanted to stick to her usual routine of getting Rachel to bail her out after a transformation. However, that feeling was part of the reason she felt like she had to turn herself in.

This time, however, she allowed herself to dial the phone number she had memorized so well. The phone began to ring.

Rachel, though incredibly helpful, had been a crutch she had relied on far too often. She was her best friend, her confidante, and the only person who had known her secret until now. She had put her time, her energy, and her care into helping her through the first few months of the changes, and Talia had let her.

However, that help had almost gotten Rachel killed yesterday, and Talia knew that she couldn't risk her friend's life anymore. She had to let her friend have a life.

"Who's this?" answered a strained voice. Rachel's.

"Rachel, it's Talia."

"Tal?!" The stress in her friend's tone had instantly vanished. "Oh my god, Tal, you're OK!"

"Yes, I'm fine, but-"

"Where are you?" Rachel cut off, her voice picking up pace as it tended to do when she was excited. Talia thought she heard the sound of jingling keys in the background. "I'm running to the car now."

A pit developed in Talia's stomach. "Rachel, stop. You can't come and get me." She paused, swallowing back a lump in her throat. "I'm at the police station."

"WHAT?!" Rachel's shriek almost deafened her, causing Talia to briefly pull the phone from her hear. "What are you talking about?"

"Rachel," Talia sighed. "It happened again last night."

"Yeah, I've been freaking out all day after seeing the news reports. I drove by your house and saw there was a giant hole in it, and you weren't there! Where did they find you?"

"I turned myself in."

"WHAT?!" Talia pulled the receiver away again as Rachel yelled.

"Rachel," Talia answered, thinking of ways to keep her descriptions vague - if the officer didn't know she was the creature, she didn't want to tip her off for her own safety. "A nightmare set it off last night. My problem, it's getting worse, and I'm losing control."

"Tal," Rachel tried to cut in.

"I don't want to hurt anybody anymore, Rachel."

There was a silence over the line. Talia looked over to her chaperone, who simply pointed to his watch.

"Rachel, you're a great friend, but it's time for me to make things right. Take care of yourself, for once, instead of taking care of me. Thank you for everything."

And with that, she hung up before Rachel could answer, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't have handled hearing her voice for another second. Staring at the ground to avoid making eye contact with the officer, she bit her tongue and began to force her brain to do what had been necessary for four months: Supress her emotions.

Talia heard the sound of footsteps and tried to ignore them as she struggled to balance her feelings. Colvin's voice filled her ears. "I've got it from here," he spoke to the other cop.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed her mix of sadness and anger down and locked it away. Blank faced, she looked up to meet Colvin, whose face betrayed a blend of annoyance and worry.

"OK doc," he said, waiting for the other officer to leave the corridor. "If you're serious about helping me lock this monster away, then I need you to give me everything."

"Of course," Talia said, nodding. "Whatever you need."

Colvin nodded, though still distracted by something. "Good, good. Because we're going to your lab."

 _My lab?_ "When?"

"Right. Now."


	9. Danger

_Talia, what have you done?_

Rachel DeLanco found herself on her back upon her couch in the living room, staring blankly up toward her plain, white ceiling. Her mind, however, was in an entirely different place altogether.

The events of the past few days continued to play in her head forwards and backwards, every little detail scrutinized, rewound, then nitpicked again. The end result was an uncomfortable fact wedged into her brain: Talia had been caught. Even worse to Rachel, though, was the fact that Talia had turned herself in.

This predicament wasn't completely unexpected. The two of them had talked about such a possible scenario of her getting caught by some type of law enforcement. After all, rampaging around occasionally as a half-naked giant green rage monster usually meant their presence wasn't far behind. However, Talia, with Rachel's help, had always done her best to avoid crossing paths with them.

 _So how could she be so stupid?_

Rachel closed her eyes and sighed heavily. _She's not stupid_. Talia was the smartest person she knew, and even now she understood why her friend would choose this path, and it wasn't stupidity, it was desperation. She was losing her battles against the She-Hulk, and those lost battles left others vulnerable. _Including me, she thinks_.

The choice was simple: Her friend saw no other way to keep others out of danger than turning herself over to their mercy.

That didn't mean she still didn't like or had to completely trust her choice, however.

Rachel's thoughts continued to bounce around her brain so hard that she began to hear a ringing sound. She knew Talia's mind operated on a similar wavelength of overcrowdedness. For once, she yearned for the blank minds that occupied the heads of some of her ex-boyfriends, who would've been lucky to sustain one ongoing thought in their heads most of the time.

The ringing wouldn't stop however, causing her to open her eyes. The slight movement of her cell phone upon the table caught her attention. _Oh wait, the ringing is real!_

She reached over and grabbed the device, pulling the screen to her face.

 **TAL CALLING. . .**

Rachel's heart skipped a beat. She hit answer before her mind had any chance to wonder how it was possible Talia was calling her on her personal phone.

"Tal?"

" _ **Rachel DeLanco, your friend is in danger."**_ The voice was loud and overly modulated.

Rachel shot up from the couch, phone clutched white-knuckled in hand. "What?"

 ** _"Talia Walker is in danger."_** Rachel fought against her urge to immediately hang up, and tried to think quickly. She couldn't tell if it was a man or woman on the other end of the line, though figured that was probably the point of them masking their identity. She had to try still anyway.

"Who is this?"

 ** _"Somebody who can help."_**

Rachel pulled the phone away and began to pace around. _Is this a trick?_ After a moment of hesitation, she shoved the phone back to her ear. "What do you mean 'danger'? Are the police going to hurt her?"

 ** _"It is not the police that need to be worried about. Time is short, you must act if you want to protect your friend."_**

A cold chill washed over her body. "I must act? I don't even know anything about you!"

There was a pause on the line. _**"If they take her, she is gone. If you get her to me, we can rid her of the beast."**_

Now it was Rachel who paused. _How do they know Tal is the She-Hulk_? She knew her choice was inevitable, however. "What do I need to do?"

* * *

The outside of her lab at the university campus brought deja vu to Talia Walker, and no doubt to her chaperone Detective Martin Colvin, as they had only chatted in this very spot the night before. Despite trying to mislead him about being the creature he called "She-Hulk," much had changed in the day since, after the beast had gone on a rampage downtown.

Talia took a deep breath, then typed in her access code to let the two of them in.

The lab hadn't changed much since she and Rachel had been there yesterday. Marks of her forced transformation still lay abundant in her normally pristine environment - a destroyed computer and a mangled platform lay in stark contrast to a set of impeccable supercomputers that were otherwise undamaged.

That sight did not evade Colvin's notice. "This is why you wouldn't let me in," he said in resigned acknowledgement. "Would've been pretty easy to figure out that somebody your size wouldn't be able to do this kind of damage."

The doctor didn't answer. Colvin continued to scan the area with his inquisitive detective's eyes. The lab remained silent for a pregnant moment, with the exception of the hollow sound of footsteps.

"Is this where the She-Hulk was born?"

Talia closed her eyes, flashes of her experiment months ago entering her mind. "Yes."

Colvin cleared his throat. "Why'd you do it?" His voice was softer, not as barbed as back during their brief visit to the police station. "Why'd you do this to yourself?"

His question went unanswered, as Talia made her way over to the computer terminal, careful not to touch anything or make any sudden movements that would harm Colvin's calm. "All the evidence you need to lock me up is in here." She lifted her hand slowly toward the computer, telegraphing her movement. "May I?"

The detective stared blankly, as if trying to register what she was doing, before realizing what she had asked. "Yes." He watched as Talia turned her computer on, unlocking it with her thumbprint. As he watched her type, he folded his arms across his chest, moving up behind her with a watchful eye. "You have video evidence that you're the She-Hulk?"

Talia nodded, bringing up a list of what looked to be the file names of numerous videos, categorized by date and time. "Take your pick."

Colvin paused. "Show me."

* * *

 _This is it,_ Colvin thought. _This is the final piece of the puzzle._

The detective could tell Talia was uncomfortable. _She's not doing all of this because she wants to, it's because she feels she needs to._ No matter. The doctor took a deep breath in through her nose, letting the air trickle out slowly through her teeth as she selected one of the first files, which prompted a video player to take over the monitor. Talia's image - her hair slightly shorter but otherwise identical to the appearance as Colvin knew her - stood front and center.

Colvin squinted. _Wait._ Something else was different than just the hair. It was - her eyes. They were not the doctor's human blue, but instead they were a pale, almost glowing green. They were eyes Colvin would never forget after staring into them the night before.

The She-Hulk's eyes.

The Dr. Walker in the video was leaning against the monitor staring into the camera, her arms planted and stiff, dressed in a plaid button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up her arm, and off-white trousers. The modulated audio that played out the speakers betrayed that the image was breathing heavily.

 _"Log entry, day 17 since the first transformation. I-I've managed to somehow trigger the metamorphosis again after a moment of intense physical pain. I can - I can feel my body begin to - to -to_ change. _"_

Colvin felt his heart begin to pump a bit heavier. He glanced aside and saw that Talia was looking away. A grunt returned his attention to the video.

 _"Unnggh."_ The doctor's body began to shake. _"Heart rate's accelerated. Getting harder to think. Muscles are starting to grow..."_ Surely enough, the usually thin arms of the doctor began to spasm, growing in spurts of power as green veins popped up along her skin. Her shoulders broadened as her torso thickened, causing the patterned shirt to grow tight against her form.

Talia's hair had grown longer, and had taken a green tinge as it thickened, strands falling upon her shoulders. She lifted her arm up, as if to brace her head, but instead a green bicep burst forth, tearing up her sleeve. The buttons of her shirt were straining against engorged breasts and defined abdominal muscles, and her now strained top began to tear at the seams.

 _"Anger, rage building up inside me. Making me feel like, like I'm going to e-explode - I can't fight it, I can't - I CAN'T!"_

Colvin watched silently as the flat image of Talia Walker ceased to exist and the green beast known as the She-Hulk burst forth, the doctor's struggle replaced by an untempered rage that almost made him jump, even through the confines of a video screen. He switched it off.

"This -" he trailed off, swallowing his word as he stared at the blank screen. The image of the She-Hulk was still burned into his eyes. "This will do, Dr. Walker." He turned to Talia, who was rubbing her arms in unease, no doubt at the sounds of the monster she was all too familiar with.

He banished the tinges of sympathy he was feeling toward Talia, because he couldn't let himself feel them now. Not when he was so close to ending the She-Hulk crisis. Instead, Colvin pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his _previous calls_ list.

"This is Colvin. Send the team down to harvest the computer."

* * *

Rachel found herself driving unusually reckless on the road heading toward Talia's lab. Getting the strange call itself had already unnerved her, but the things she had been told on the call _terrified_ her.

She found herself swerving around and cutting off drivers who were already clearing 10 mph over the speed limit, nervously checking her rear view mirrors to make sure there weren't any police who had taken notice. _Police. Can it be true?_

Keeping her eye on the road, she shoved her hand down to the cup holder and felt around for the shape of her phone, clutching the device in her fingers and pulling it up toward her her field of view. "Where is that number?" she said to herself aloud, trying to split her attention between the road and her saved numbers list.

"There we go." She hit the green _dial_ button and then tapped the speaker function, throwing the phone onto her lap as she returned her eyes to her driving, slamming the brakes and swerving around another car who was not matching the speed she was desperately trying to achieve at the moment.

 _"Pallas Police Department."_

"Yes, hi," Rachel answered, quickly clearing her throat. "Hi, I'm looking to see about visiting someone who has been taken into custody, one Talia Walker. Has there been bail set?"

 _"One moment."_ Elevator muzak filled the line, the most obnoxious sound that only encouraged Rachel to put more pressure on her gas pedal. Minutes felt like hours, and miles felt like light years as she waited.

Finally, the muzak clicked off and the officer's emotionless, dry voice returned. _"Hi, ma'am. We don't have anybody in custody under that name. Are you sure you have the right name or department?"_

Rachel's heart skipped a beat. "Are you sure? I received a call from her from your jail not too long ago. Brown hair, on the skinny side?"

The officer paused. _"Sounds familiar, but nobody by that name has ever been booked here. Are you sure that's the right name?"_

"Oh," Rachel said, feeling herself on the verge of tears. "Maybe my mistake. Thank you for your time, officer." She tapped the disconnect button and locked her eyes back and the road. _She's been erased, like the caller said she'd be. This is bad._

* * *

Talia couldn't hear what the other end of the line had said to Detective Colvin, but whatever it was, it had him incredulous.

"What do you mean you can't send anybody down?" he yelled into his phone at a distance that she thought he tongue might reach through the speaker and spit on whoever was on the receiving end. _At least now I know why he's angry._

That's when she noticed a blinking light on her computer.

She turned to Colvin, who remained distracted by his phone call, then back at the computer. She figured she wasn't supposed to touch anything without his supervision, but the only reason a light would blink on her computer was if it had triggered one of the custom alerts she had set up during her research. _Do I risk it?_

Already standing near the computer, she subtly reached over to her keyboard and quickly tapped the return key, triggering the alert to display, before quickly withdrawing her arm.

 _Nanoprobes detected. Data requested during last search transmitting..._

Talia's brow furrowed as she squinted to make sure she had read the alert correctly. The nanoprobes had completely disappeared during the experiment with Rachel when she had forced her change. How could they be back now?

"This is bullshit!" Colvin's voice echoed throughout the lab again, and Talia turned to look at him again. His eyes glanced over with a mixed look of worry and confusion, before he turned back to the wall and began to yell again. "If your department can't do the simple task of keeping the records accurate, I'm reporting you all to the Attorney General!"

The alert light flashed again. Talia waited until Colvin's back was to her before plunking the return key once more.

 _Data received. Displaying results..._

Numbers and statistics flooded the screen, and Talia's eyes began to devour the information with widening eyes. _These readings, this is incredible! This could be a major insight into the energy behind the metamorphosis!_

The doctor stopped herself and tore her gaze reluctantly from the computer screen, and glanced at the detective standing across the room from her. _A little too late._

The red message light caught the corner of her eye, and Talia looked back at the computer. "What now?" she whispered to herself.

Another discreet keyboard tap unveiled words she had never programmed into the system.

 ** _YOU ARE IN DANGER. THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU AND THEY WANT YOUR MONSTER._**

"What in the..."

All thoughts were quickly abandoned as the door to Talia's lab swung open, and the noise of the heavy door smacking into the wall caused both Colvin and Talia to spin around in surprise. Before she could register who had invaded her lab, the stranger lifted a device in their hand and aimed it at the detective, launching two thin wires at his body. As they made contact, Colvin began to convulse as he dropped to the floor, being pumped with electric current.

Talia's eyes darted back to Colvin's assailant. "Rachel?"

Her friend stood there with the most serious look she had ever seen in the history of their relationship. "Talia, we need to go NOW."

"Rachel, I-"

"Now!" She dropped her taser, grabbed onto Talia's wrist, and pulled her through the door.

The two of them ran out of the building and into the open air, Rachel running at a breakneck pace while Talia struggled to keep up in her flimsy flip flops, before finally tripping to the ground and forcing her friend to stop running.

"Rachel!" Talia shouted. "Are you crazy? What are you doing? I turned myself in, I'm in police custody!"

"No Tal, that's the thing: You're not," Rachel responded grimly. "There's no record of you anywhere. And somebody wants it that way."

She wasn't convinced. "And that gives you the right to attack the detective? Now we're both going to be thrown behind bars!" Talia felt her pulse rising, so she forced herself to take several deep breaths to counter.

"Listen, I can explain this on the way, but you have to trust me." Rachel held out her hand to her friend. "Please, Tal, for both our sakes?"

As Talia relented and reached out to her friend, the loud roar of gunshots rang out into the open air. The women both hit the ground and looked back toward the lab to see Colvin standing with his pistol drawn, opening fire at the pair. "Stop right now!" he shouted, his voice ripe with ire.

Rachel got on her hands and knees and grabbed Talia "Ok, let's go, now!" The doctor felt herself clumsily forced to her feet as Rachel's grip on her wrist pulled her in the opposite direction of the angered detective. She once again did her best to make her feet keep up with the brisk pace her friend was setting, those this time she followed willingly. She could feel her heartbeat rising, fear taking over her mind, but she did her best to expel the emotions

Another gunshot rang into the air, but nothing happened. Instead, the sweet relief of grass became apparent under her feet as Rachel began to cut their path away from the open.

It all happened so quickly. The gunshot exploded into the air, and before she could comprehend anything about it, Talia felt the bullet rip into her leg, the shock of pain sending her to the ground as a spurt of blood colored the grass around her. Rachel, turning to see what happened after losing her friend's grip, screamed.

Adrenaline surged through Talia's body as an immediate response, her brain attempting to counteract the agony inflicting her pain receptors. At the same time, the unique body chemistry of the scientist began to react to the introduction of the adrenaline, and triggered the beginnings of a metamorphosis.

Rachel knelt down, grasping Talia by the shoulders. She felt her friend's eyes locked onto the bullet wound. "Oh my God, Talia!"

Gripping her wound, Talia screamed - not at the pain, but at the familiar sensation that she recognized as the beginning of her transformation. "Rachel," she cried. "Don't want - don't want to be the monster agaiiiiiin!"

* * *

Colvin kept his gun aimed high as he shuffled his feet toward the fallen doctor, refusing to shift his gaze off of her or her friend. As he moved closer, he ignored Talia's screams, instead eyeballing the bullet wound he had just inflicted into the back of her left calf, which she was still cradling. _Non-fatal_ , he confirmed, though he momentarily wondered if that was a good thing.

"Don't move!" he shouted, attempting to steady his firearm within his shaking grip. "Don't either of you dare try anything."

The mystery blonde woman looked up, her eyes holding daggers. "Do you know what you've done?!"

Colvin kicked her to the ground and put his knee on her back, pulling the woman's arms back and cuffing her. "Let's see you use a taser on me now." The woman didn't put up a fight, but instead kept looking to Dr. Walker.

"Leave her ALONE," growled Talia.

The doctor, on her knees grimacing, whipped her head toward him at a frightening speed. Her eyes, however, were even more unnerving - what were pale and blue were now a bold emerald, almost glowing. Even worse was the feeling he had seen those eyes before.

The eyes of the She-Hulk.

"I warned you!" grunted Talia. "Now it's - it's too late... _ungghhhh_...I can't - I can't stop it. I can't... _hnggggh..._ " the doctor closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her abdomen as she knelt amid the grass. "You need to run, and take her with you!"

Colvin swallowed back a lump in his throat and did his best to hide his growing uneasiness. "I warned you too, doctor." He pulled the hammer back on his pistol, meaningless in practice, but useful as an audible warning. "If you try to change I will shoot before I let you rampage again."

"THEN SHOOT!" Talia shouted, her voice audibly deeper. She whipped her body backward, arching her back, her arms planting behind her and her head facing upward toward the sky. Green veins began to pop up all over the doctor's body. Instantly her skin began to darken into a shade of jade as the fabric of her once-oversized t-shirt began to tighten. Skinny arms began to swell beneath the loose sleeves, the thin material stretching tightly over enlarged muscles before bursting at the biceps. Colvin could only stare in disbelief, unable to drop the gun or to pull the trigger.

Talia's shirt began to stretch and strain across her body as her torso began to bulk up, gaps of green skin appearing through tiny tears as the shirt struggled to stay together. The doctor's once-modest breasts rapidly engorged underneath, pulling the material taut across her chest, enlarged nipples poking though the thin fabric. Unable to hold any longer, the shirt split open in the middle with an audible tear as the large orbs pulled the tee apart. The rest of the top fared no better, with the seams separating and the cloth falling to shreds - victim of the musclebound power of the emerging monster's body.

Colvin's eyes fell from her breasts down to the rippling muscles of her abdomen pushing against the skin of her stomach. Beneath, the once-baggy gym shorts grew tight, the material pulled thin against the woman's widening hips and bulging thighs, then stretched taut down her pelvis. The material began to tear away like tissue paper, splitting at her thighs, hips, and crotch.

Her bare, narrow feet had doubled in size, and were now pushing themselves into the thick soil of the earth below. The woman's - no - the creature's hands began to wildly pluck clumps of grass, roots and dirt and let them crumble between her fingers, squeezing the turf in pulses as bones painfully cracked underneath the skin, her frame growing faster and faster. The bullet wound, which had been inflicted upon the doctor's calf, rapidly began to heal, spitting the projectile out from her flesh bouncing to the ground near Colvin's feet - one final affront to what he had done to her.

Long, wild, and green hair spilled down off the emerging creature's head as the last vestiges of clothing fell in tatters to the ground, revealing a similar green patch of hair strewn wildly on her pelvis. The monster began to rise, flexing newly reborn muscles and the power of the rage behind them.

Colvin had just watched the same process on a video in the lab, but it hadn't felt real until now. The She-Hulk stood in front of him - a naked mass of muscles and rage - and all he had was a puny gun.

The monster's teeth were clenched, a violent growl vibrating beneath them, warning him of what was to come. Her wild eyes met his, telling the same story.

Colvin swallowed, lifted his gun to the monster's head, and fired.


	10. Sound and Fury

The muzzle of his gun flashed, bringing with it a deafening boom that Detective Colvin felt rip through his ears split seconds later. His eyes glued themselves shut in an instinctive defense mechanism, as he felt himself stumble back, blind and deafened in the face of the monster he knew as the She-Hulk.

His ears rang painfully from the dangerously close pistol shot, lessening the sound of the creature's painful roar in reaction to his bullet, which had just hit her point blank in the face. Though his body fought him, Colvin forced his eyes open and steadied his feet, squeezing the grip of his firearm.

The She-Hulk stumbled back a step herself, her large, green hands shooting up to cover her face. The furious yell transitioned quickly into a rage-filled growl.

It may have been the massive amounts of fear and adrenaline coursing through his body at the moment, but as he looked upon her, the detective swore that the monster looked larger, stronger, and more bestial than she had when he last encountered her the night before. Muscles bulged from her bare skin looking as if they were about to rip through, with bulging veins carrying gamma-irradiated blood mapped across the span of her naked body. As the She-Hulk removed her hands from her head her face contorted with fury, framed by a furrowed brow and a set of clenched teeth soaked in cascading saliva.

Last night, he had seen traces of humanity in the monster. Tonight, those were gone.

Colvin was also loathe to remember the creature's frightening speed from their last confrontation, and he knew when she wanted to make her move, he'd be left with little options. He briefly wondered if he'd be left with his life.

The contemplation of his future, as well as what the She-Hulk's next move would be, was not to last, as the beast made her move. Everything happened in a blur, and it took the detective several moments to realize he was no longer on the ground, but in the grasp of his adversary. Fiery eyes of emerald stared through Colvin as he hopelessly attempted to free himself from the submission.

"She-Hulk!" came the woman's voice. The creature made no move to acknowledge it.

Colvin briefly allowed his eyes to dart to the woman, who was attempted to force herself to her feet, struggling for balance while her arms remained handcuffed. Visibly frustrated by the failure of her first call, she shouted again. "SHE-HULK!"

The monster again did not acknowledge the woman, but instead unleashed a low, rumbling growl. The detective felt the hands surrounding his body start to tighten.

 _She's going to crush me into powder!_ he thought. Out of options for what he could do, Colvin felt his mind racing for a last ditch solution as the pressure increased. His attempts to squeak out any words were futile, for he couldn't draw in enough air to even speak. He refused, however, to close his eyes and wait for his end - if these were his last moments he wanted the beast, if there was any recognition inside, to see his defiance until the end.

However, Colvin realized slowly, he had inexplicably not yet been turned into powder or otherwise harmed by his adversary. Instead, to his great surprise, the monster released her grip and let him fall to the ground.

Ignoring the sting of the drop on his aging body - it was preferable to being crushed - the detective made quick use of his fortune to scramble away. The She-Hulk, however, no longer paid him any heed, but instead was staring off into the distance.

The woman looked to Colvin briefly before shifting her gaze up at the She-Hulk with a mix of confusion and annoyance. "She-Hulk, we need to get out of here." Her voice was now beginning to carry a tone of desperation. "Remember me, Rachel? Ray-Chel? I'm going to get you away from all of this."

 _Rachel, her name is Rachel. Remember that,_ Colvin told himself.

The creature only growled in response, whipping her head back and forth and moving her large, green body into a defensive stance. _She's acting like a scared animal,_ thought Colvin. He noticed that the monster seemed to be turning her vision in response to sounds in the distance. Sounds he couldn't hear... _yet._

Something was wrong.

"She-Hulk!" the woman — Rachel — yelled.

The roar of engines and the screeching of tires finally became audible to his human ears, and as they did his human eyes and body were given little time to react. A fleet of bright yellow Humvees - Colvin could immediately identify five - screeched through the parking lot, tearing their own path toward their location with little concern for other cars or obstacles that were obliterated in their path.

Before he knew it, the vehicles had pounced upon their location. In unison, each of the Humvees began circling around the three of them. Colvin stayed on the ground, unsure of what move to make, while the She-Hulk attempted to put herself between them and the vehicles, constantly moving around and roaring at the aggressors.

With one last maneuver, the five Humvees pulled handbrakes and spun into position, front of the vehicles facing toward the three of them. A joint mechanical hum followed as large, cylindrical devices began to raise out of their roofs slowly.

The She-Hulk, however, had lost patience. Her rage, unspent since the transformation, found a target in one of the Humvees as the creature leapt forward, demonstrating her incredible speed. Her two muscular arms came down toward the hood of the vehicle, and was instantly rebuffed by a bright shock and loud zap of electric current, which sent the creature tumbling back in surprise. The Humvee remained undamaged.

Her failure did nothing to dissuade the creature, however, and instantly the She-Hulk propelled her body forward again, this time bringing her shoulder down for the collision. The electric current was there to guard once again, sending the monster tumbling back, but this time she kept her footing, and charged again, roaring in absolute anger. Planting her powerful legs into the ground, the She-Hulk again attacked, joining her fists together and bringing them down repeatedly onto the hood of the Humvee. The vehicle's safeguards continued to send its current into her, but the monster herself was safeguarded by her rage-driven strength, which kept her in place, continuing her onslaught in ignorance of any pain. With the following strike, the She-Hulk smashed a large dent into the hood of the Humvee.

The Humvee retaliated.

The large device, now completely unveiled atop the Humvee the She-Hulk was attacking, in addition to each of the five vehicles, slowly began to vibrate, before then unleashing a narrow wave of compressed sound directly into the creature's body. Unprepared for the magnitude of the attack, the She-Hulk found herself flung away from the damaged vehicle, ragdolling across the ground and sending chunks of grass and earth into the air as she left a wide crater.

Rachel, upset, ran over to the She-Hulk instantly. Colvin turned his attention, however, to each of the vehicles. Further vibrations began to emanate from the rest of the devices above Humvee fleet. They were going to attack again.

Acting quickly, Colvin sprung to his feet and moved himself toward Rachel, who he grabbed by the jacket and by the handcuffs that still bound her, using whatever strength he had to drag her away from the She-Hulk. She began to scream and resist him, but he had no time to care about that.

They had made it only about 10 feet away when another soundwave blast collided with the She-Hulk, the surrounding turf exploding in dirt and dust. Colvin felt his body, alongside Rachel's flung into the air, and he felt consciousness slip away.

* * *

Rachel jolted awake, in what could've been seconds or minutes after hitting the ground. Her senses were askew - she felt pain everywhere, could only hear a loud ringing in her ears, and any attempt to focus on her surroundings resulted in double vision.

Squinting through her instant splitting headache, she forced her eyes to cooperate and give her a hint to what was going on. The first clue was the detective, Martin Colvin, who lay prone on the ground a few feet away from her, still unconscious. Blood was dripping from his ears, no doubt from the same broken eardrums that she figured she was suffering from.

Rachel turned and saw that they had been flung clear of the Humvee circle. That did nothing to quell the feeling she had in her stomach, however, as the She-Hulk — _Talia —_ was still in there. Instinctively she tried to move her arms, only to feel the metal of the handcuffs dig into her wrists. "Damn it," she cursed, before rolling herself onto her knees.

 _I need to help Tal_ , she thought. _She's mindless right now in a way I've never seen the She-Hulk before. Pure rage. This transformation was different — the trauma of the gunshot must've made things worse._

Doing her best to focus, Rachel shuffled on her knees over to the detective's limp body slowly and began to quickly search for any sign of keys that would free her from the handcuffs. But even through ringing ears, it was hard to ignore the sounds of the battle raging on behind her.

Rachel looked over her shoulder and, to her great frustration, could only see the Humvees. Their weapons, the last thing she remembered, were still firing. _She's going to just keep fighting them, and I don't know if she'll win._

Fighting back tears, Rachel turned back around and redoubled her efforts. She angled herself sideways, using her bound hands to ruffle through his clothing and pat down his pockets. "Don't worry Talia, I'm coming for you."

The detective — whether from Rachel's prodding or just natural recovery — began to move, recovering slowly as she had. Knowing she didn't have much time left, she instead changed her focus and grabbed the next best thing.

As Colvin got to his knees, Rachel angled her body into him and pushed him back to the ground. As he toppled over, she turned her torso so that her cuffed hands could haphazardly aim the gun she had just stolen at its owner.

"This is all your fault!" she yelled at him.

The detective, still woozy, stared at her incredulously as he lifted himself back up. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

"I had an escape plan before they showed up!" she shouted. "You ruined that by shooting her."

Colvin glared back, unamused. "I'm sorry her being under arrest was inconvenient for you," he scowled. "Plus, I don't recall you sharing any information like that before you tased me. You going to shoot me now too then blame me for not helping?"

Rachel opened her mouth, but no words escaped. Instead, she bit her tongue and lowered the gun. "Fine. But why did you take me away from her just now? She's all alone in there!"

"I just saved your life, _honey_ ," Colvin said deadpan. "I saw them, they weren't going to wait for you to get out of the way. And unlike your friend in there, we can't survive a direct hit from something like that." He craned his neck over to the mysterious vehicles. "You knew they were coming, so who are they?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I was warned that some dangerous people were going to come for her."

He placed a hand on his forehead, no doubt in a futile attempt to relieve the same headache she was suffering from. "Whoever they are, we're not their concern. That works to our advantage now, too."

"I can't leave her." Rachel looked back towards the Humvees. "They're going to take her," she replied, continuing to fight back tears. "Or worse, they're going to kill her."

Colvin was unmoved. "Maybe that'll be a good thing."

Rachel felt her own rage overwhelm her headache. "Bullshit!" she spat, motioning her head over to where she had last seen her friend. "She didn't ask for any of this! She's still a person deep down — a person tried to do the right thing by turning herself in and trusting you to do your job."

"Don't go all moral on me," Colvin said, rolling his eyes. "You tried to take things into your own hands, and now you want me to bail you out."

"No, I want you to be a goddamn good person and help me save a life." Not wasting another moment, Rachel willed herself to her feet and — Colvin's gun still in hand — took off running toward the battle.

Colvin attempted to run after her, but his sore muscles were no match for Rachel's died, even handcuffed. "Wait!" he shouted at her. "You idiot, you're going to get yourself killed for a monster!"

* * *

She-Hulk strained to return to her feet, but yet again met another blast from one of the various sound cannons. As the creature turned to face the source of the attack, she felt another one collide into her, violently forcing her to collide to the hard ground.

There was no thought, only rage. No people, only enemies.

No reaction — only smash.

As the attack ceased, she began to rise from the ground as she had before. Again, the rumbling roar of the weapons began to feel the air.

She-Hulk met the soundwave barrage once more, but this time she was ready. Teeth clenched and muscles flexing, she stood against the puny weapon, refusing to let it send her to the ground again. They could not overpower her.

A second attack collided into her, but She-Hulk fought. A third wave joined the assault, but the beast stood. They could not outnumber her.

She leaned her hulking torso into the soundwaves in front of her as a fourth began to pound against her, extending her arms to push back against the pressure. Calf muscles rippled as her feet sunk into the ground as the attacks pummeled get body, veins popped out of her skin as every fiber of her being fought despite it. They could not cripple her.

Finally, the fifth and final weapon unleashed its power, and the creature was under assault from all sides. She could not hear, she could not see, she could not breathe.

And it made her angry.

The beast, rage fueling every muscle, propelled herself forward and delivered an uppercut to the Humvee so powerful that it immediately shorted out the vehicle's electrical shielding and sent it flipping upright then onto its back, the sound cannon crushed against the ground.

The other four Humvees began to steer their weapons toward She-Hulk's new location, the soundwaves tearing up swaths of ground as they cut toward the monster. However, the green giant did not cease upon her first conquest, commanding her muscular legs to carrying her in a full sprint around to the neighboring vehicle. Before the soundwaves could be focused against her, She-Hulk lowered her shoulder and rammed herself into the side of the second Humvee, again ignoring the shock of its defensive systems. With a thundering boom, the vehicle skid against the ground a good twenty feet and spun about, tire marks leaving an earthen trail amongst the grass.

With a mighty leap, she was atop the vehicle. Crackling filled the air as the defensive system attempted to shock her away, but the beast ignored it. Stomping her feet into the metallic roof to plant herself, She-Hulk grasped onto the sides of the sound cannon and flexed her muscles. Mechanical gears grinding, she turned the firing weapon off its intended axis and ripped it from its housing. Holding the weapon above her head like it was a trophy, she then brought it down with her full might against the armored roof over and over, its delicate parts exploding around her as the deadly vehicle began to look more and more like discarded scrap.

The victory was short-lived, as a barrage of soundwaves collided into She-Hulk and sent the creature spiraling through the air before colliding with the ground in an explosion of dirt and rock. She-Hulk felt anger, but she also felt...pain.

"She-Hulk!" The voice entered her ears almost ethereally, appearing despite the overwhelming noise. "She-Hulk, are you OK?"

Her mind, which had been consumed with pure rage-driven instinct, latched onto the familiar voice. The pupils in her eyes contracted. Her senses, which had been a blur, returned to her. Thoughts began to populate in her head aside from emotion.

 _Puny human? No, friend? Ray-Chel?_

Then it was there again, the vibration. Multiple vibrations. Those were the puny humans, again in their vehicles, ready to attack. They wanted to hurt her, but there was no hurting She-Hulk.

But they were going to hurt Ray-Chel.

The weapon fired.

She-Hulk's body moved, however, as if time had slowed. Every muscle used its power for speed, every thought was to protect. She comprehended only the need to put herself between her friend and the weapon. Reaching out, she wrapped her large arms around the small human and pulled her close.

The sound waves hit, and her senses went dark once more as the earth exploded around her. Pain didn't matter, the anger didn't matter. But Ray-Chel…

She slowly unwrapped her body from her friend. Time stood still to the creature as she waited for a response.

"She-Hulk?" Ray-Chel spoke, looking up. She was safe. "Are you OK?"

She-Hulk felt relief. But she also felt something else, something rising quickly.

They tried to hurt her. Humans always wanted to hurt her. Humans never wanted to leave her alone. Now they had tried to hurt the one human who knew her.

She felt anger. She felt the _rage._

"She-Hulk?" Ray-Chel asked again. _She-Hulk, my name…_

"She-Hulk…" the creature repeated. She stood, and turned around, her naked body scuffed by dirt and battle. The vibrations started again, as the three remaining Humvees moved into formation one next to the other and began charging their weapons. She spread her stance wide, leaned forward, flexed her muscles and let the rage wash over her.

"SHE-HULK" she screamed, her voice a boom even amongst the sound weapons. "... SMASH!"

The creature lifted her arms over her head and brought them down onto the ground with fury. A massive wave of power rippled forward along the ground, opening up the earth underneath the Humvees. The vehicles collapsed into the sinking dirt as She-Hulk stood tall and roared.

* * *

Rachel almost couldn't believe what she had just seen, but if there had been one thing she had learned in the time since Talia first transformed into the creature, it was that the She-Hulk was full of surprises.

"She-Hulk,"she said, staring up at the monster from the ground. The creature turned toward her and it was if the anger burning within her transformed body instantly seemed to vanish.

"Ray-Chel," she spoke slowly.

"Can you get me out of these?" She did her best to wiggle her bound arms behind her back. "Then I'm going to get you out of here, OK?"

The creature's brow furrowed and her eyes darkened, the anger returning. "Why Ray-Chel in chains? WHO PUT friend Ray-Chel in CHAINS?! Was it PUNY Talia?"

Rachel shook her head. _No, let's not go there, She-Hulk._ "No, puny Talia didn't do anything to me."

The creature's head whipped around, searching for the missing Colvin. "Was it PUNY HUMAN with PUNY WEAPON?"

"No, no, don't worry about that," she answered, eyeing the detective's gun which she had dropped on the ground. She turned around and offered her bound hands to the creature, who grabbed the handcuff chain and snapped it in half, before then ripping the individual cuffs off.

 _OK,_ Rachel thought, _now that you've done your magic trick, now it's time to do mine._

Hands finally free, Rachel rubbed her raw wrists, but then offered her touch to her friend. She Hulk growled defensively at first, almost instinctively, but Rachel stroked her arm comfortingly, which lowered the creature's guard. "Listen, close your eyes, She-Hulk. Listen to my voice. You don't need to fight anymore. You can rest now."

She thought she saw a glimmer of Talia's eyes in the She-Hulks, but the monster flinched. Rachel continued to soothe her.

"I know you're hurting, I know you're tired," Rachel continued. "Rest now."

The She-Hulk closed her eyes, and with a deep breath, signaled that fatigue had won over rage. The large, scuffed, muscle-hardened green body that stood in front of Rachel began to shrink. Broad shoulders narrowed. Hard biceps became soft flesh. Large breasts and hips became humble curves. Long, green hair retracted to ear-length brown locks. Bold, emerald eyes became pale blue.

Monster became woman.

Talia fell into Rachel's arms, shaking from the stress of the metamorphosis. "Wh- where am I?" she stuttered. "WHERE AM I?"

"Tal, it's OK," said Rachel, who began to slowly rub Talia's back in an attempt to soothe her. "I've got you."

"Danger," Talia mumbled wearily, shaking her head in a confused manner. "Danger. . . is coming."

"It's OK, Tal, it's all over -"

Vibrations rumbled across the ground again, and Rachel froze. _Oh no._

She looked over and saw the Humvees beginning to stir. The sound cannons had been reactivated, but instead of aimed at them, they were aimed at the ground. As the deafening noise filled the air, the vehicles began to blast themselves upright.

 _No!_ Rachel thought. _Why is nothing going my way today?_

"No, danger, DANGER -" Talia grabbed her head, as if she was in pain, and her body began to shake. "I can't let them hurt you…"

 _No, please Talia, we're so close._

Rachel wrapped her arms around her friend tighter, looking her directly in the eye. "Talia, I know you're confused, but listen! We're both going to be safe, we just need to get to my car and -"

"No, they're coming and I can't let them hurt you. I CAN'T LET THEM HURT YOU," she growled. "NOOOO!"

Rachel's heart skipped a beat as Talia's eyes once more flared green and her body began to change. Talia's body pressed up against hers, Rachel could feel her friend's soft flesh hardening with muscle, bones cracking underneath as her small frame expanded beneath her grip.

"Oh, Tal…" Rachel sighed sadly.

Rachel squeezed harder, hoping to provide any sliver of comfort to Talia as her humanity slipped away once again. Where Rachel's hands once felt the smooth, chilled skin of her friend, she gradually felt the hardened, rough skin of something else. Her hug, which had started as a cradle, now was the obsolete egg that the newly formed creature inside needed to break out of.

The woman who she was holding in her arms slowly became no more - now there was only She-Hulk, back as quickly as she had gone away.

"I WILL NOT LET PUNY VEHICLES HURT RAY-CHEL!"

 _I can't fit She-Hulk in my car,_ thought Rachel. _And these Humvees are going to come back after her once they're out of that ditch._

"She-Hulk!" Rachel shouted. The monster shifted her gaze to her, and Rachel reached out and grabbed her massive hands with her own smaller ones. "I can't let you smash right now, but I know how you can protect me from puny humans." She pulled on the She-Hulk's hand, and surprisingly the creature followed willingly. They crossed the grass away from the Humvees over to where she had haphazardly parked her car - where she had originally tried to get Talia before Colvin's gunshot had started this whole ordeal. _Where is the detective, anyway? He vanished after I ran to help Talia._

She reached in and grabbed a backpack. Rachel paused to quickly zip up her jacket before buckling the pack's front straps across her chest. With a quick sprint, she ran, jumped, and threw her arms around She-Hulk's neck. The creature, confused, caught her and supported her body in her arms.

"She-Hulk, do you see the sun?" Rachel asked, pointing towards the fiery late afternoon sphere. "I need you to keep jumping toward it as long as you can, OK?"

"Ray-Chel?"

"Please, She-Hulk, for me, for Rachel, I need you to JUMP!"

With a mighty roar, the She-Hulk, clutching Rachel tightly, leapt into the air toward the western sun, and the pair made their way toward the horizon.


	11. Reflections

Talia Walker didn't feel human.

The doctor leaned in front of the mirror, her head hung low, carrying the weight of her decisions upon her. Rachel, the detective, the beast - they each occupied a piece of her mind, pieces of her soul, pieces of her guilt. What was right, was what wrong, that didn't seem to matter. How could what she felt matter when she wasn't always herself?

Reluctantly, Talia fought against the dread that was weighing her down. She craned her neck upward, forcing her eyes to gaze on her reflection in the mirror, to see herself.

The mirror, however, was staring back at her.

Nervously, Talia tilted her head to the left, and the reflection followed as it should've. She tilted it to the right, and her image followed again. She let out a sigh of relief.

"You're human, Talia," she reminded herself. "You're human."

The reflection leaned forward, reached through the mirror, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Are you so sure?"

* * *

Talia woke up in darkness. Her heart pounded against her chest as she lay upon her back, her lungs sucking in shallow breaths.

Quickly, though, her senses came to her rescue. She realized she was on her back, laying on something soft. A bed. She brought her hands to her side and used her arms to push herself up. Sheets, which had been draped over her, fell off as sat upright.

She paused for a moment, and allowed her breathing to slow. To her relief, unlike after her last nightmare, she didn't feel the now-familiar pangs that usually signaled the metamorphosis. She was going to stay herself, at least for now.

As Talia collected herself, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. She began to scan her surroundings carefully, taking note of what she began to realize was a place she had no knowledge of. _A motel room?_ The layout was consistent with one. She was laying on a bed in the center of the room, there was random furniture scattered about, an in-wall air conditioner rattling and outdated boxy television weighing down a cheap dresser.

As she continued to see more and more of the room every second, Talia noticed a chair in the corner that held a body. The doctor felt herself tense up, but she held her breath and immediately forced herself to regain her composure.

The person lay asleep in the chair, clutching a small blanket that was draped over them. Talia recognized the long, sand-colored hair, and instantly felt more at ease. _Rachel._

She slipped out of the bed quietly and landed softly on her feet. Her legs buckled under her own weight, as if she hadn't been on them in a long while. Moving slowly until she got her bearings, she made her way toward a door that had a sliver of light leaking out from beneath it. She opened it slowly and slipped inside, closing the door once more behind her.

As Talia stood in the bathroom and looked up, she instantly froze. Once more she was face-to-face with her reflection.

The reflection remained frozen across from her in the mirror as she continued to stare and assure herself that this one wasn't going to have a mind of its own. _It was just a nightmare,_ she reassured herself. However irrational, she still felt a bit uncomfortable as she forced herself to walk up to the bathroom counter. And she knew it wasn't just because of the nightmare.

She still didn't feel human. That part hadn't changed. She looked the part, yes. But her nightmare doppelganger's words hung with her as a heavy truth.

Breaking eye contact with herself, Talia looked down and noticed for the first time that she was dressed in a pair of purple pajamas adorned with cartoony yellow dogs and white cats across her top and bottoms. "Rachel, you're too good to me," Talia whispered. She paused, allowing a sad sigh to escape her lips. "Too good."

To be human was to err. She was good at that. To feel human, however, she had to see it with her own eyes.

She slowly unbuttoned the pajama top and pulled it off of her torso. She let her bottoms fall to the floor after, the clothing crumpling in a pile at her feet.

Talia stared at herself in the raw, nothing to cover her, nothing to hide behind, except her own form of doubted humanity. A humanity that looked almost the complete opposite of the thing she turned into.

Her reflection continued to match her movements, and for a brief second their blue eyes locked. She shifted her gaze uncomfortably to her head, and brought her hands up to her dark, shoulder length brown hair. She ran her fingers through the thick strands, lifting it above her head and watching it as it fell back to rest behind her.

Her hands continued their journey down her face, tracing pronounced cheekbones and a narrow chin. She had never seen herself as pretty, though she had never wanted to be noticed, either. _Made it easy for me to focus on my studies and research._ Her unextraordinary neck followed, which led her fingers down to angled shoulders framed by a pronounced collarbone beneath. She allowed her fingertips to meet at the top of her breastbone, before drawing them down her torso between her breasts, which she had never minded were smaller, if not average.

She crossed her arms around her stomach, then traced her hands around the narrow hips that adjoined her pelvis, skirting around her pubic hair, and letting her arms finally fall back to their sides next to the lean legs that were still struggling a bit to keep her standing. She bent her knees carefully in order to allow her arm to feel the back of her right calf, where in one of her last memories a bullet had torn into triggering her last change. There was no sign of it anymore, however, almost as if it had been a bad dream.

 _No, the bad dream is what followed,_ Talia reminded herself darkly, as she remembered losing control and being overridden by... _it._

Drawing her eyes up again, Talia took notice of her light skin which was tinged with a hint of olive, a gift of the Greek heritage she had inherited from her mother's side, alongside her name. The irony of always having her skin maintain even the slightest green was not lost on her, though it was not something she found to be very amusing, either.

Her eyes finally arrived level with her reflection, noticing her blue eyes, which remained cold. Though she continued to stand naked, she still felt like she had layers to shed. She wanted to tear her skin off, claw through her flesh, and keep digging until she could reach the monster that lived within her. She wanted it gone, she _needed_ it gone.

The doctor walked over, her human body and the creature within in tow, and cranked the small, rectangular shower into action. As hot water sprayed from the showerhead bringing steam in tow, Talia looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror one more time. She watched and waited until the mirror fogged up and her mirror image disappeared, then climbed into the shower. As the hot water began to roll down her body, she sunk down to the floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and began to cry.

* * *

"Rachel, what happened?"

Talia sat on the motel's bed once more, clad in a white towel, hair dripping cooled water onto the sheets as she stared at her friend, who stood looking like a lost puppy that had fallen off the pajamas that now lay on the bathroom floor. "Rachel, please."

"Why don't you get dressed and relax a bit, first," her friend pleaded. "You've been through a lot recently."

 _Stop trying to protect me, Rachel! You're already in too much trouble because of me as it is!_ Talia bit her tongue, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "I can't relax precisely because of everything that's happened. The problem is, I don't know what happened, or how long ago it was since I knew what was happening." She looked around at the motel room, which was now more visible due to yellow glow of fluorescent lights. "I don't even know where we are."

"We're in upstate New York," Rachel answered. "First motel I could find."

Talia took a moment to process the information. "Upstate New York? How?"

"The She-Hu-the creature," Rachel corrected herself, "she took us here. It was as far as she could go before you changed back." Talia felt her eyes meet hers. "You... _it_ was being attacked by the people I had been trying to rescue you from. Before that jackass shot you, and, well…"

"Yellow vehicles," Talia remembered. Rachel's eyes widened.

"That's right."

"Deafening sound," Talia continued as she cradled her forehead, images flashing in fragments through her mind. "None of it is clear, but I remember you being there, you were in danger, and I was _angry._ "

Rachel paused, and Talia felt her eyes searching her own, almost as if her friend were looking for imprints of the memories on her eyeballs. "I had gotten you to change back briefly, but their imminent threat made you re-transform."

"How long?" Talia asked.

"Three days," Rachel said. "You've been passed out in here for three days and I wasn't sure you were going to wake up. But you're OK now, thank goodness."

"Rachel, are you OK?" Talia asked, looking over to her friend. She still found it hard to make eye contact. "Did they hurt you? Did Colvin hurt you?" She felt herself holding back tears. "Did _I_ hurt you?"

"Colvin up and vanished, and those vehicles tried to hurt you more than anything, but the She-Hulk didn't let them." Rachel got up from her chair and moved over to the bed, placing herself beside Talia, who felt her friend's warm hands upon her shoulders. "Listen to me, Tal," she said with an additional shoulder squeeze, "You didn't hurt me. You never hurt me. In fact, here we are, out of danger. The She-Hulk, she protects me."

In a flash of anger, Talia brought her arm down from her head and broke Rachel's grip on her, jumping off the bed.

"No! Stop calling it that!" Talia shouted. "It doesn't deserve a name. It isn't a person, it's a monster! It doesn't share my body, it steals it! It doesn't have a mind, it oppresses mine! I had this body first, one tiny incident shouldn't have changed that, but it did! There is no us, there's me and a curse, a problem, a condition! And look at all that it's caused! One tiny bit of good doesn't rectify that."

"I know, Tal," Rachel stumbled, "but it's out of your control -"

"It's ALWAYS out of my control!" She turned her back toward her friend, ashamed to face her. "I try to work on gamma research, it gets out of my control. I try to work on a cure for the demon that mistake put inside me, and it gets out of my control. I get desperate and break into a lab to steal technology to help me understand what's happening to me, and it gets out of my control. I try to use that tech and selfishly ask for your help, and it gets out of my control. I then decide to try to do the right thing and turn myself in, and even _that_ gets out of my control. This creature is defined by loss of control!

"And want to know what the common theme is?" she asked. "You're getting hurt. I've already lost my life, but why are you giving up yours for me?"

Rachel wiped away a stream of her own tears. "Because I choose to." She got up and walked over to Talia, spun her around to face her and wrapped her arms around her. Talia felt her mind hit with another flash, from the brief moment she had been herself outside her labs, with the yellow attack vehicles. She remembered starting to change back into the monster, and Rachel…

...Rachel hugged her as she changed. Was there with her as she was there for her now.

"Rachel," Talia said, her anger melting into hopelessness. "I don't know if I can take much more of this. I don't want to change anymore. If I step through those doors, it's almost a guarantee that the beast will come out. It's in there, I can feel it waiting to burst out, to take over. Every time I do, the thread unravels, and I don't know how much is left to hold me together."

"That's what I'm here for," her friend said, withdrawing from the hug and staring straight into her. "Plus, don't pretend like you weren't there for me a million times over the last several years long before the She-Hulk came into the picture."

Talia felt an ounce of light enter her being. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Rachel's smile was a worthy reward.


	12. Cold Case

"You're kidding me," the detective hissed. "Just like that?"

Martin Colvin brought his right hand up to his head and rubbed his palm across the thinning hair on his scalp. A sarcastic smile spread across his lips as he allowed an incredulous chuckle to escape.

At the other end of a large wooden desk half-cluttered with paper-filled folders and assorted varieties of uncapped pens, a husky, grey-haired man refused to join in the laughter. "Yes, just like that."

"Captain," said Colvin, leaning forward onto the desk, one hand touching the wood and the other colliding with a triangular nameplate, rolling it so the name _Capt. James Phillips_ sat upside down. "You are a walking contradiction."

That, however, drew a laugh from the man, who sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, shaking his head at the ceiling before meeting Colvin's eyes. "Oh save your uninspired insults for somebody who gives a damn." He pushed a brown folder forward on his desk toward the detective. "I would've thought you'd be more grateful to be off of this case, considering the hell you gave me when I put you on it. Who's the walking contradiction now?"

Colvin ignored the brown folder and stabbed his index finger down on the grey folder labeled "She-Hulk" that lay nearby instead. "I finish my cases, and this one ain't finished."

Phillips sighed. "But it is finished. For us. It's been taken out of our hands."

"By who?" Colvin slammed his fist on the desk. "Those assholes with the yellow humvees who almost got us all killed?"

"Maybe. Maybe not." Phillips' patience was wearing thin. "Word came down the chain that the case was not our responsibility any more. And-"

"But what about-"

"AND," the captain said, his voice overpowering Colvin's interruption, "honestly, good riddance." He picked up the She-Hulk folder and tossed in on a pile of clutter behind him. "If the feds want to waste their time with it, let them. Let us focus on real police work. Let you get back to being where you need to be."

The room sat silent for an uncomfortable moment, the buzzing of long-obsolete fluorescent lighting echoing off the numerous framed newspaper clippings that adorned the walls. The detective's hesitation allowed the dull aches of his injured ribs to make themselves known, the pain serving as a worthy companion to the monster-sized headache that was pounding within his head.

"Captain," Colvin said, his eyes closed and his voice as calm as he could muster. "Are you going to let me see this through?"

"You know the answer to that, detective."

Colvin took his arms off the table, turned, and walked toward the door. "Then I need some time off. Effective immediately."

Phillips shook his head. "And after you're done chasing this She-Hulk, what's next?" The question froze Colvin at the door. The captain turned to his desktop computer and typed a few phrases into a search engine, proceeding to highlight various headlines. "I've heard stories of giant lizards in New York, sasquatches and wendigos in Canada, teleporting demon acrobats in Germany, a man made of iron in California, and of course, the cherry on top, some woman dressed in Renaissance Faire garb ranting about claiming to be Thor, God of Thunder."

He turned back to Colvin. "You want the rest of your career to be focused on tabloid fodder?"

"But sir..."

"OK, here's the deal," the captain interrupted. "I put you in this assignment to whip you back into shape. You were a mess after everything that happened with Kelly. I figured having you chase some green Twilight Zone loonie around might make you yearn for real work again, and if you got to see a naked lady out of it, green or not, all the better.

"So the thing turned out to be real," Phillips shrugged. "You got more excitement than most of Vermont sees in a decade."

Colvin raised his eyebrows, unamused.

"Listen," said the captain. "You're a talented detective, Martin. Do what you need to do, but don't throw your career away for it."

The detective nodded silently and left the office.

* * *

 _Why can't I get the She-Hulk out of my mind?_ Colvin sat in his sparse one-bedroom apartment, the living room slowly growing darker as the lone window began to lose its glow due to the setting sun. The detective couldn't bring himself to turn on the nearby lamp, instead occupying his focus on the blank white wall ahead of him.

His mind began projecting images in front of him. He saw the monster as he had encountered it over the past several days - angry, powerful, bestial. His ribs ached in disastisfaction.

But that image soon changed. In front of him was a woman - dark hair, small frame, meek. But he had seen too many bad people hide behind innocent facades before. Talia Walker was too smart for her own good, and just as dangerous as the monster.

 _Is she, though?_

His mind rewound several days to the outside of the doctor's lab. His bullet. Her pain, her rage…

 _Her eyes._

The monster's eyes. The mighty transformation that happened right in front of him. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before in his life. Even though he had seen the She-Hulk before, seeing the beast come to life made it more... real. It kept replaying in his mind over and over.

 _"I warned you!"_ she had grunted, barely clinging onto humanity. _"Now it's - it's too late...ungghhhh...I can't - I can't stop it. I can't...hnggggh..."_

 _"THEN SHOOT!"_ she had spat at him when the only thing he could answer with was the threat of his gun. Then the monster was reborn, tearing through both her human clothing and her human shell.

The detective anxiously twirled a cylindrical tube - taken from the lab - between his fingers.

He had been so sure, once Dr. Walker had turned herself in the day before, that he had her, the She-Hulk, and the whole thing figured out. But he really had only hit the tip of the iceberg.

 _Maybe,_ Colvin thought to himself begrudgingly, _she was telling me the truth back at the station_. _That she's trying to seek help._

"Help. Truth," Colvin grumbled to himself, derailing his skid toward sympathy. _The truth is that whether she controls the She-Hulk or not, she's a menace. And now she's out there ready to let her destruction loose on other innocent people. Who can help her now? Who else could bring a savage She-Hulk to justice?_

But the other truth? _I ran. Like a coward._

The doctor's friend, Rachel, had run after the yellow Humvees battling the monster. The two of them had barely escaped an errant shot of their sound weapon. He wasn't ready to follow her to a potential death.

He instead withdrew to Dr. Walker's lab, using the distraction to retrieve the evidence he needed to put her and the She-Hulk behind bars, where they couldn't harm anybody. _Or so I told myself._

The harddrive of the doctor's files sat on his table. He knew, on there, were videos of Dr. Walker transforming into the She-Hulk. They, however, were worthless without the actual She-Hulk, who had escaped his grasp while he was hiding - no, _gathering evidence_ in the safety of the lab.

And the yellow Humvees? Gone just as quickly. No trace of who were operating them, not an ounce of debris or a speck of yellow paint left in their trail.

The only things that remained were the shreds of a shirt and shorts that the woman-turned-beast had left in her wake. _And me._

Colvin laughed sadly. _You talked a big game with the captain, Martin. You walked out and committed against orders to follow the She-Hulk, but you have no damn idea where it even is._ The captain had been right - he had never wanted the assignment - but, now things were different. The She-Hulk, wherever the monster was, was calling to him. He needed to find it.

And as the yellow Humvees had proven, he wasn't the only one looking. _I need to find them, too. Are they Feds? Military? Something else?_ Nothing had turned up in any of his preliminary search.

Also of concern was the word from his contacts in the Pallas police that the doctor's lab had been ransacked by an unknown party. _What were they looking for? Do they know what I have?_

 _Do they know how to find the She-Hulk?_

He had no leads, no witnesses, no clues for either of his mysteries. _Time to work, then._ He placed the purple tube he had found in Dr. Walker's lab down on the small, scratched-up coffee table next to his worn-in recliner and retrieved his cell phone with the same hand.

After scrolling through his contacts list to a familiar name, he hit the dial command and wedged the phone between his right ear and shoulder. The line only rang twice.

"Hello?" A gravelly voice answered at the other end.

"Hi, Mike? It's Martin," the detective said as he flipped open a pocket-sized spiral notebook. "I need to call in a favor."

 _ **Author's Note:**_

 _ **Hi all, sorry for the long gap between updates. It's been a busy summer, and I found I hit some writer's block. That said, I have so many things ready to come your way with this story, and the words seem to be flowing again! I do hope you're all cool with a Colvin-centric chapter after the long wait. Either way, Talia will be returning soon (As for the She-Hulk? We'll see...)**_

 _ **Please let me know your thoughts in the reviews, and I look forward to bringing you more ASAP!**_


	13. Empire State of Mind

She never thought she'd see Manhattan again, but there it was, right outside her window.

The highest peaks that surrounded Talia Walker had gone back and forth in her life. She was born and raised amid the mountainous terrain of Vermont, before trading that in for a landscape of skyscrapers upon moving to New York City for college and her career.

 _Fate seems to be putting me on a seesaw between the two,_ Talia thought. Her life's path had brought her away from the city and back to her native Vermont for a time. And now, as she stared at the towering buildings around her, man's towering creations welcomed her once again.

Rachel's face was almost glued to the window of the coach bus, her neck craned backward attempting to frame the height of the buildings adequately from her vantage point. Talia smirked, remembering her first time seeing the grandiosity of New York as she arrived on a similar bus ready to attend university. She had been matter-of-fact about the whole thing, naturally, but she would be lying if she had claimed the place didn't have an impact on her.

This time, her entrance into the city again was strictly business, and she found herself void of any nostalgia-driven warmth or awe. _This is the only option I have. There's nowhere else I can go._

As the bus entered the Port Authority, the tall skyline was replaced with concrete barriers, and the sunlight that had been streaming through the brief glimpses of sky had now been replaced with artificial beams showering upon them.

Talia handed her laptop back to Rachel, who placed it within her bag. "Everything there?" Rachel asked, her attention finally attainable now that the city's peaks were temporarily unavailable. "I feel like you didn't take your eyes off that screen for the entire ride down."

"Yes, thank goodness," Talia responded. The nanobot data had uploaded from her lab computer to the cloud storage, accessible from the laptop she had given Rachel after the transformations had first started "I still can't make sense of some of it, though."

After the incident with Colvin and the yellow Humvees, she hadn't been able to get back to her computer in the lab to safeguard it once more. She hoped that the security measures kicked back in themselves, but there was also a chance that the detective or whoever had attacked the creature had access to that same data. _Detective Colvin already has too much for his own good._

She waited until she and Rachel had disembarked the coach bus that had brought them from upstate down to the city before continuing her thoughts. "The more I study the nanobot data," Talia said, turning her head to make sure the other passengers were out of earshot, "the more I'm convinced that its findings may hold the the key to my metamorphosis into the creature."

Nodding slightly, Rachel brought her right hand through her hair in an attempt to dispel the effect the bus seat's headrest had had on the back of her head. "I really hope so, Tal."

Soon the pair had exited back onto the streets of Manhattan, and once more Rachel's head craned back in order to stare down the city's skyline.

"I still can't believe you - _you_ \- lived here for so long," Rachel added.

Talia snickered. "I used to thrive under pressure, ironically." Talia began walking, keeping her head level and letting her old internal GPS start guiding her down the city streets. "I feared this place would eat me alive," she said. "However, we found an understanding."

Rachel mindlessly stepped out onto the nearest street and was immediately greeted with the angry honk of a yellow taxi that stormed by at an excessive speed. Frazzled, she stepped backward onto the safety of the sidewalk. Talia leaned her body off the sidewalk and extended an arm up into the air, and soon a subsequent cab slowed silently and idled at their location.

"Hello there," said Talia. "Can you get us to Empire State University?"

* * *

Talia leaned her weight into the heavy glass door that stood as the entrance to Empire State University's science building and felt the rush of cool, climate-controlled air flow past her as she pushed her way in, Rachel a few steps behind.

"Wow," Rachel commented. "This place is huge!"

The pair moved through the large atrium, weaving their way around several glass-encased exhibits featuring the works of students and resident scientists. They reached the far wall, where a large monitor, standing at least five feet tall, was embedded into the marble. Talia reached out and placed her finger upon the touchscreen, which reacted immediately with a menu. With a few quick touches, she navigated to staff directory, which was divided into different fields of study. She scrolled down to the 'G' section, briefly pausing on _Gamma Radiation Lab_ before moving on to _Genetics Lab._

Finding what she was looking for, she made a turn for the elevators.

The ride upward felt like she was back in her old daily routine, even if it had been a few years. She reached her hands to the sides of her light jacket and wrapped the covering around her, suddenly swept over with a cold chill. The action didn't escape Rachel's sight.

"You OK?" Rachel asked, placing a hand on Talia's shoulder.

Talia turned and nodded. "Yeah." She touched Rachel's hand with her own in affirmation. "Just feels weird coming back, you know? So much has changed."

The elevator chime rung, and the doors opened onto the 11th floor. Talia and Rachel stepped out and walked down the hallway, Talia's eyes scanning the numbers and names of offices, her heartbeat growing stronger as each nameplate grew closer to the one she knew she would soon find.

Soon they had found their destination, and swallowing back a lump in her throat, Talia allowed her fist to knocked upon the closed door.

"Come in," a voice responded.

With a deep breath, Talia opened the door. A man with light brown hair, wearing a blue checkerboard-patterned dress shirt adorned with a canary yellow tie, looked up. His face instantly paled, his smile fading and his pupils dilating, as if he had seen a ghost.

"Talia?" he squeaked, slowly pushing himself up from his chair. "You're alive?"

* * *

Martin Colvin sat at the old, worn dining room table in his apartment, piles of papers littering the surface. The sound of an inkjet printer echoed through his tiny, sparse space; printed pages falling out the bottom and joining others on his floor behind him.

The detective sat with a stack of papers in his hand, the name "Walker, Talia" headlining the page. Everything he knew about the doctor, and the She-Hulk, was in this apartment.

 _Thank you, Mike._ That one phoned-in favor had unlocked so much information previously restricted to him.

"See, Martin?" he murmured to himself. "This is what happens when you actually try."

He quickly scanned the papers, his eyes darting left to right, line to line, trying to find a word, a place, a clue to help him figure out the enigma of the woman who had slipped through his fingers. Instead, this printout, like so many of the others, held nothing. He threw the pages across the room.

The detective glanced up at his clock and saw the hands at roughly twenty past the hour. Shaking the grogginess from his head that the coffee hadn't eliminated yet, Colvin reached for another pile of papers.

All the stuff he had found on Dr. Walker had been digital, but Colvin had an attachment to the physical. He enjoyed holding paper in his hand, highlighting text and scribbling notes, making piles of useful information and crumpling up and tossing insignificant items basketball-style into his trash can. He turned just as another piece of printed material fell from his printer and watched as the paper floated its way to the floor.

Colvin leaned back in his chair and began to tap his pen against his forehead. He had been digging through papers for hours at a time, spread across days. _Prior to the She-Hulk, her record seems pretty clean._

Colvin began reading through the next paper close to hand, this one Dr. Walker's bio page from Byrne-Lee University, where she had operated her lab until recently. At the top of the page was a staff picture of Talia, quite similar to how he recognized her from their recent encounters — feigning a smile that seemed to be hiding a deeper sadness.

"Born and raised in Vermont," he read aloud to himself, "Dr. Talia Walker graduated as valedictorian of Pallas High School before attending Byrne-Lee University on a full scholarship." He paused to take sip of coffee. "She graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Science degree _summa cum laude,_ and moving to New York City to get her Masters of Science and Doctorate in gamma radiation studies at Empire State University, where she then continued to work on staff as a lab researcher.

"After years of field-leading research at ESU," Colvin continued, sneaking in another brief sip, "Dr. Walker was thrilled to return home and join the staff of Byrne-Lee, where she continues to explore the untapped potentials of gamma radiation."

He lay the paper on the table and started writing in the blank, unprinted section at the bottom of the page. _She's smart, that much I already know. Only strange thing is why she would leave a no-doubt high paying career at ESU to come back to small-town Vermont?_

Colvin tapped his finger on his ceramic coffee mug. "She said the She-Hulk was born here in Vermont, so its creation couldn't have been the cause." _Though that monster rampaging around Manhattan instead of here would have made my life so much easier._

"Empire State U, eh?" Colvin muttered, as he began to shuffle papers. Moving piles around, he finally recognized the school's name on a messy stack of pages on the other end of the table. Sliding them over to him, he placed his coffee down on the table hard, a bit of the dark liquid inadvertently splashing onto the clean pages. "Crap," he grumbled, trying to wipe away the liquid futilely. The stain wasn't bad, however, so he moved on.

 _Press releases, grant details, award nominations, all pretty straightforward,_ he thought to himself, eyes darting across the ESU documents. _She had been focused on gamma radiation at the university, no surprise._ He stopped as a press release caught his eye.

"'Empire State University Gamma Radiation Lab awarded for new breakthroughs in animal muscle restoration,'" he read to himself. He started to scan the rest of the release, but he paused, his eyes drawn to a photo set at the top of the page. A group of men and women clad in white lab coats stood gathered around an older man in a black suit, all smiling. The man was handing a small, engraved plaque to one of the scientists, a woman who looked absolutely sunken and frail. Cheekbones were prominent, hands were bony - she looked to be in poor health.

But the face, the face…

"Holy hell," Colvin shouted. He immediately ran to the floor and began digging through the discarded papers until his hands lay claim to the Byrne-Lee University biography he had read through minutes earlier. He slapped the page onto the table next to the ESU press release, and whipped his head back and forth repeatedly until his neck began to ache.

The woman in the picture accepting the award was Dr. Talia Walker, except this was a Talia who looked weeks away from death. The Byrne-Lee photo, despite being dated later, showed her looking as she did now - small but healthy.

Colvin shot up, knocking his coffee to the floor in the process, but he paid it no mind. He began digging through the pile of unorganized pages that lay on the floor underneath his printer. "Where are they?" he growled, taking quick glances at pages in each hand before tossing them into the air. "I know I printed them!"

Finally, the document caught his eye. _Walker, Talia - Medical History._ He had requested it as part of the investigation but had originally paid it no mind, considering the doctor appeared in fine health. _Aside from changing into a giant green rage monster, of course, but why would that be on her records?_

Unsurprisingly, the She-Hulk was not listed on Dr. Walker's medical records, but the answer Colvin was looking for stood out like a sore thumb.

"Degenerative muscle disorder," the detective read. _She received years of treatment, but nothing worked, so she stopped receiving care it looks like._

Colvin stared blankly at the wall. "She came back to Vermont to die." His eyes suddenly widened, and the detective almost dove for his car keys off the counter. "I know where she's hoping the She-Hulk will die too!"


End file.
